The OBR has published jaw-dropping new facts about the pre-Budget timeline, which undermines everything we were told in the run-up to Wednesday.
The OBR has revealed shocking claims about the Chancellor (Image: Getty)
Rachel Reeves could be set to go down in history as Britain’s most dishonest chancellor, after the Office for Budget Responsibility revealed that everything we were told in the lead-up to the Budget was completely false. Ahead of Wednesday, the Treasury consistently briefed that the Chancellor was going to have to raise taxes by billions in order to fill a financial black hole, by something in the range of £20-£30 billion.
The Chancellor openly blamed this on downgrades to productivity projections, which she said was caused by Tory austerity, Brexit and the pandemic. However this lunchtime the OBR published the jaw-dropping revelation that Ms Reeves knew as far back as September 17 that the so-called fiscal black hole was not £30 billion, but a negligible £2.5 billion.
This suggests that the Chancellor then set out on a two-month-long deliberate mission to warm voters up to yet more record-high tax rises, knowing full well that they did not need to go up.
The Chancellor lied to voters about the need to raise taxes (Image: Getty)
While the productivity downgrade did wipe £16 billion from projected tax receipts, the OBR told the Chancellor in September that this had been almost entirely offset by increases in real wages in inflation.
By October 31, the OBR’s projected £2.5 billion deficit had disappeared entirely, transforming into a £4.2 billion surplus.
This OBR projection then did not change before the Budget, meaning every single one of the briefings we heard from Treasury officials, sources and the Chancellor herself about the impending need to raise £20-£30 billion in taxes was categorically untrue.
The £26 billion in tax rises announced by Ms Reeves on Wednesday’s Budget, therefore, were entirely of her own choosing in order to fund yet more welfare handouts.
It also raises questions about why the Chancellor ever considered hiking income tax, as she hinted at in a major way at the early-morning Downing Street press conference on November 4.
Rachel Reeves will now face pressing questions from opposition politicians, the media and voters, as to why she voluntarily chose to breach her iron-clad manifesto pledges on tax without any good reason.
Tax rises which, lest we forget, went towards her flagship Budget announcement of abolishing the two-child benefit cap for Universal Credit, something both she and Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly said during the election they would not do.
The damning OBR timeline (Image: OBR)
The reality is that in last year’s general election, the British public was essentially duped into voting for a manifesto that never existed.
Labour constantly portrayed itself as a sensible, centre-left party, committed to rock-solid tax promises and dedicated to advancing ‘working people’.
Yet the moment they got into government, they tore up every single promise and shifted – in full public view – into a hardline socialist government only willing to rob working people to hand to ‘benefit street’ Britain.
Labour promised just £8 billion in specific bespoke tax rises. After the initial £40 billion tax raid in the first budget and this week’s further £26 billion hike, they have now raised taxes by more than 7 times what they promised voters, to fund pledges they explicitly ruled out.
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to view this government, on economic grounds at least, as anything other than the most dishonest since the Second World War.
