EXCLUSIVE: One of the biggest beasts in UK politics says: ‘They have lost the next general election. That is baked in. There is no way they’re coming back from this.’
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will be judged by whether they can get the UK growing (Image: PA)
Labour cannot win the next election and Rachel Reeves torched its credibility when she broke a manifesto pledge by hiking taxes on working people, according to Sir James Cleverly. The former Home and Foreign Secretary speaks to the Sunday Express in the shadow cabinet room in the Palace of Westminster – but he now has real hope that the men and women who sit around its table can escape Opposition and oust Labour.
“They have lost the next general election,” he says. “That is baked in. There is no way they’re coming back from this.”
Labour promised ahead of last year’s election it would “not increase taxes on working people”. But on Wednesday the Chancellor announced income tax thresholds will be frozen for a further three years, until 2030-31. This means more workers will pay a higher rate of tax and more pensioners will have to pay income tax.
“It is, in every definition, a direct breach of their manifesto commitments,” Sir James insists. “And the British people are not daft and they will feel this and they will feel it worse by the time of the general election.”
He says he would be “amazed” if Sir Keir Starmer is still Labour leader when the election comes around.
“I actually think Labour’s future is now is now set,” he says. “They’ve got a reputation for dishonesty. Any idea that it’s a party of integrity is way out the window now. They don’t have a plan for the country and they’re not going to create one between now and the next general election.”
The fates of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are “bound together”, he argues: “The only reason she is still in the job is because Starmer knows that if, like a number of other women in the Labour party, he throws her under the bus, this time he’s going with her.”
When asked if he believes Ms Reeves should resign, he admits: “The really partisan bit of me thinks the longer she stays around, the better, because she’s doing so much damage to the credibility of the Labour party.”
But he argues that when a Chancellor loses credibility, “it has a direct, pretty much immediate and detrimental effect on international business confidence in the UK just at a time when we need to be fighting and competing internationally”.
When Labour took power he expected the party would have a well-developed plan to tackle illegal migration.
“I assumed they had already, perhaps, cut a deal with with France or something like that… I sat there watching and waiting and nothing happened.”
He has now concluded Sir Keir’s party does not have “a plan at all” for the challenges facing the country.
“If they had a bad plan, I’d be a bit frustrated,” he says. “To have no plan at all, it’s like criminal negligence, totally unacceptable. And we are all suffering.”
Sir James Cleverly wants the spirit of Thatcher unleashed in Britain today (Image: Philip Coburn/Sunday Express)
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch delivered one of her fieriest performances in the Commons on Wednesday when she responded to the Budget speech.
“She’s genuinely angry at what Rachel Reeves is doing to the country that she loves,” Sir James says.
Winning the next election remains a mammoth challenge for the Conservatives, with Politico’s poll of polls putting the party on 17% – just one point ahead of the Greens and one point behind Labour, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK riding high on 29%.
Sir James insists the coming contest is “absolutely” winnable but he warns this will require “really, really, really hard work”. A key test will come in May when voters go to the polls to elect thousands of councillors and the members of the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
He cautions against panic if the night goes badly, saying: “The May elections are going to be very, very, very hard for a whole lot of reasons… They’re going to be tough.
“But panic is is never the right answer. In business, in the military, in sport and in politics, if one of your options is to panic, don’t take that option because it will not work.”
The Conservatives, he argues, are starting to win back credibility.
“Gently, people are looking at us again,” he says. “And what they’re seeing is a party that is serious about balancing the books.”
Sir James, who stood in the Tory leadership election, rejoined the party’s top team in July after he took what he describes as a “breather” from frontline politics. A key attraction of taking on the the role of Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government was getting to go head-to-head with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner.
Ms Rayner resigned in September when it was revealed she had failed to pay the full amount of stamp duty, but Sir James says he “struggles to believe” she won’t stage a comeback.
“The Labour Party has underestimated her at every stage,” he says. “I suspect they’ll do so again.
“I think she’s formidable.”
However, he claims there is “zero” chance Labour will deliver on its manifesto pledge to build 1.5million new homes.
“There are very few things that are certain in politics, but this is one of them,” he says. “They are nowhere near doing the things that will make that a possibility…
“They won’t scrap stamp duty. They had a real opportunity to ease the tax burden on homeowners and people thinking of buying and selling properties.
“What did they do? They ramped up the taxes.”
He accuses Labour of “killing the private rented sector” and says the people who are “really suffering” are “hardworking young people who want to start a family, but are unable to do so because they don’t have the security of tenure that they would like”.
Sir James, 56, describes himself as a “Thatcherite, Reaganite conservative” and has early memories of the 1978-79 winter of discontent. He takes inspiration from how the Conservatives changed Britain during his childhood.
Look back on life under Labour, he says: “I remember everything just being a bit rubbish. And then fast forward 10 years, by the time I’m 20, the the UK is a fundamentally different place.
“We once again are an economic powerhouse.”
Sir James Cleverly and his colleagues meet in the shadow cabinet room but he wants back in power (Image: Philip Coburn/Sunday Express)
At a time when Labour members, he says, are “shuffling around like zombies”, he yearns for the chance to steer Britain in a new direction. But first Sir James and his colleagues need to win the trust of the electorate.
“There are no quick fixes,” he says. “There are no shortcuts and we are not going to do it by lying to the British people about the tough choices that are going to be made.
“But I suspect when they look at when they look at the team that Kemi has built around her, when they look at our full set of policies, when they recognise that we are literally the only party that is going to balance the books, they will see that we are the right choice for the country.”
