{"id":502457,"date":"2025-10-15T21:21:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/502457\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T21:21:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T21:21:24","slug":"why-reevess-attempt-to-blame-farage-for-brexit-is-her-most-dangerous-strategy-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/502457\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Reeves’s attempt to blame Farage for Brexit is her most dangerous strategy yet"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel Reeves\u2019s<\/a> decision to blame Brexit<\/a> and its architect Nigel Farage<\/a> for the scale of the black hole in next month\u2019s Budget is a significant political gamble.<\/p>\n

The Chancellor risks a confrontation with her party\u2019s supporters. One in five Leave voters backed Labour<\/a> at the last election, with many now tempted by Reform UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAusterity, Brexit, and the ongoing impact of Liz Truss\u2019s mini-Budget; all of those things have weighed heavily on the UK economy,\u201d the Chancellor told Sky News on Wednesday, as she laid the groundwork for tax rises in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With welfare and winter fuel policy reversals, the signs for this Budget are only pointing one way: to tax increases and spending cuts. But Reeves also has another problem. On 26 November, just as she dusts off her red box, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will announce a reduced productivity prediction.<\/p>\n

The fiscal watchdog is likely to argue that Brexit was a major cause of the downgrade to productivity, with sources indicating the economy would have been \u00a3120bn bigger by 2035 had the UK not left the European Union.<\/p>\n

With the OBR recalibrating its entire way of assessing its forecasts on Reeves\u2019s watch, Labour is questioning why the watchdog did not get its abacus in order before the election. \u201cWhy didn\u2019t they make the Tories own it?\u201d one minister lamented.<\/p>\n

The consultancy Oxford Economics estimates that moving the OBR\u2019s productivity forecast back in line with a less optimistic projection would knock 1.4 per cent off GDP over its five-year prediction cycle. That, it argues, would force Reeves to increase taxes or cut spending by an eye-watering \u00a320bn to meet her fiscal rules and maintain her slim \u00a310bn of headroom before any other choices.<\/p>\n

But after the backlash to tax rises in last year\u2019s Budget, how does the Chancellor come back for more? And more politically important for Labour, who will take the blame?<\/p>\n

Like the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado, Reeves has a little list of people to fault. Austerity, the pandemic, Ukraine, Liz Truss and global market conditions will all be noted, according to Treasury sources. But Labour\u2019s key electoral threat will be afforded the lion\u2019s share: the architect of Brexit, Nigel Farage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But there are dangers to a political strategy that risks treating voters like nursery-school children by telling them they made bad choices. One Labour MP in a \u201cRed Wall\u201d seat is not impressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s insane. The only thing I can think of that they\u2019re going for here is to shore up the progressive base, throwing a bit of red meat to people who think that Labour should be trying to rejoin the EU. I just cannot believe that this has actually been put to focus groups, and they think this is going to play well with the kind of people that we need to win back,\u201d the MP said.<\/p>\n

It is not a universal view. Jonathan Brash, Labour MP for Hartlepool where 70 per cent voted Leave in 2016, says voters are owed a grown-up conversation about the effects of Brexit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people I represent are straight-talking and honest. And I think today we would look at the facts and look at the settled opinion that overall, economically, Brexit has not been good for us. Now, does that mean it will be good for us? Who knows? That\u2019s the future.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Farage] is one of the biggest advocates of Brexit. He should be out saying exactly why it\u2019s actually not been economic damaging to the country at all,\u201d Brash added.<\/p>\n

But ahead of local elections in May, the Government\u2019s attempt to blame Farage also risks re-energising the two-fingers to Westminster attitude that swung the Leave vote in 2016. Reform will be keen to point out that Farage may have campaigned for Brexit, but it was the Tories who implemented it and Labour which is now seeking closer ties to the bloc.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think voters in places like mine see Brexit as a mistake at all. They see it as unfinished business,\u201d Reform\u2019s deputy leader of Durham County Council, Darren Grimes, told The i Paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Labour now wants to pin their tax rises and spending failures on Brexit, they\u2019ll find that doesn\u2019t wash here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Government is aware of the public anger over the rising number of small boats<\/a> and how Farage is exploiting the issue. Treasury sources suggested the Budget could also contain measures to slash waste in the asylum budget<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back in Westminster the OBR has been urged \u201cto score\u201d more Government projects. That means demonstrating how policy decisions add to national growth figures and give Reeves more wriggle room for spending. With the decision on which programmes to pick down to the independent watchdog, Treasury insiders grumble that major decisions are sometimes left off its reckonings to the detriment of growth figures.<\/p>\n

One example is that by Reeves\u2019s fiscal update in March, the OBR had still not scored the benefits of the UK joining the CPTPP trans-Pacific trade bloc in late 2024.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday Reeves told Cabinet colleagues planning liberalisation is one measure \u201cto take the shackles off the economy\u201d. It\u2019s also something she hopes the OBR will score more favourably. Likewise, the Chancellor is seeking a positive score for the EU reset deal and youth mobility programme.<\/p>\n

Perhaps ironically for someone seeking to blame Brexit, she would also like the OBR to score the benefits from the India free trade deal<\/a>, only made possible by Britain\u2019s withdrawal from the European Union.<\/p>\n

The challenge presented by Reform is the key trial for the incumbent Labour administration. Outreach to Reform-inclined voters is a core element of No 10 strategist Morgan McSweeney\u2019s<\/a> plan. Last Christmas Keir Starmer<\/a> announced five missions for his Government \u2013 stopping Farage is Labour\u2019s unwritten sixth mission. That\u2019s why Reeves\u2019s decision to blame Brexit seems jarring, however technically correct she may be.<\/p>\n

She may find a sympathetic audience: just three in 10 Britons now say that it was right for the UK to vote to leave the EU, compared to 55 per cent who say it was the wrong decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Farage\u2019s current popularity also stems from rebellion, identity, and complaint. These are areas where Labour seems less confident, particularly when they\u2019re trying to get across a technocratic message linked to the OBR. Simply put, voters dislike higher taxes about as much as being told they were wrong. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel Reeves\u2019s decision to blame Brexit and its architect Nigel Farage for the scale of the black hole…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,1194,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,528,384,15764,619,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-502457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-labour-party","17":"tag-nigel-farage","18":"tag-politics-opinion","19":"tag-rachel-reeves","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115380282039845100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}