Rachel Reeves set to revive Tory plans to invest in the Red Wall as Labour tries to head off Reform threat
Rachel Reeves is poised to revive Boris Johnson’s plans to plough billions into the Red Wall as Labour tries to head off the threat from Reform UK.
The Chancellor is said to have ordered a review of the framework to enable investment in the North and Midlands at next month’s spending review.
Labour will hope the plans to level-up the country by funnelling billions into infrastructure and green energy projects could boost the party’s fortunes.
It is focusing on the threat from Nigel Farage, whose party made huge gains in the local elections and continues to top opinion polls.
To counter Reform’s popular appeal, Ms Reeves will tear up Treasury spending rules and announce a multi-billion-pound investment package, The Times reported.
MPs expect capital investment in road, rail and green energy projects worth up to £100billion after she changed the fiscal rules in her Budget last year.
Channelling spending into these areas will allow Sir Keir Starmer to argue that Labour is delivering on its election pledge to improve living standards in every part of the country.
Ms Reeves is said to have ordered a review of the Treasury’s Green Book, which sets out the framework in which projects are granted funding.
Rachel Reeves is poised to revive Boris Johnson ’s plans to plough billions into the Red Wall as Labour tries to head off the threat from Reform UK
It is focusing on the threat from Nigel Farage (pictured), whose party made huge gains in the local elections and continues to top opinion polls
It has historically favoured investment in London and the South East as those areas are judged to give the biggest returns in terms of growth to the economy.
But the review will reportedly conclude that ministers should give more priority to areas that are deemed to be performing poorly.
It is likely to be published on the same day as the spending review next month, followed by a ten-year infrastructure plan.
The last review of the Green Book took place in November 2020 under Boris Johnson who pledged to level-up the country by upping spending in the Red Wall, where the Tories took seats from Labour.
The Prime Minister has positioned Reform as his main opponents and held an emergency press conference following Mr Farage’s intervention earlier in the week.
He accused the Reform leader of planning an ‘irresponsible splurge’ of tax cuts and spending increases.
A Government source said Ms Reeves had been clear that she wanted to review the Green Book to provide ‘objective, transparent advice on public investment across the country, including outside London and the southeast’.
This would mean that ‘investment in all regions’ was given a ‘fair hearing by the Treasury’.
The last review of the Green Book took place in November 2020 under Boris Johnson (pictured) who pledged to level-up the country by upping spending in the Red Wall, where the Tories took seats from Labour
But Kevin Hollinrake, Tory local government spokesman, said Sir Keir had ‘problems wherever he looks’.
He added: ‘Working-class voters have completely lost faith in Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves and others, not least because of the disgraceful stripping away of the winter fuel allowance. It looks very bad for the Prime Minister right now.’
The International Monetary Fund warned this week that Ms Reeves would have to raise taxes or cut spending to pay for her U-turn on the winter fuel payments.
Ministers could also dilute disability benefit cuts as backbench opposition to welfare reform grows.
Keir Starmer faces calls to SACK top legal adviser Lord Hermer after peer apologises for ‘clumsy’ speech comparing calls for UK to quit ECHR to early Nazi ideology
Keir Starmer is under pressure to sack his top legal adviser today over a speech in which he compared demands that the UK quit the European Convention on Human Rights to early Nazi ideology.
Attorney General Lord Hermer today apologised for an astonishing speech last night in which he accused right wing MPs and the media of being behind a ‘siren song’ pushing for Britain to drop international law.
Speaking at a London think tank the former human rights lawyer and close friend of the Prime Minister said such ‘songs’ had been heard before, citing Nazi ideologist Carl Schmitt, who supported Hitler’s policies such as the Night of the Long Knives assassinations in 1934.
The comparison triggered uproar today, with Robert Jenrick, a leading Tory proponent of leaving, branding it ‘appalling’.
This afternoon a spokeswoman for the Attorney General said he rejected the Tories’ ‘characterisation’ of his speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
She said he was ‘defending international law which underpins our security, protects against threats from aggressive states like Russia and helps tackle organised immigration crime‘, but added: ‘He acknowledges though that his choice of words was clumsy and regrets having used this reference.’
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called on the PM to sack the peer, who has been at the centre of controversy since being ennobled last year.
“From refusing to fight the case against Kneecap, to advising the government to hand over £30 billion and our territory in the Chagos Islands, Lord Hermer has shown appalling judgment time and again,’ she said.
In an astonishing speech last night Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, hit out at right wing MPs and the media for being behind a ‘siren song’ pushing for Britain to drop international law.
Speaking at a London think tank the former human rights lawyer and close friend of the Prime Minister said such ‘songs’ had been heard before, citing Nazi ideologist Carl Schmitt, who supported Hitler’s policies such as the Night of the Long Knives assassinations in 1934.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called on the PM to sack the peer, who has been at the centre of controversy since being ennobled last year.
Now he’s calling people who disagree with him Nazis. This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s dangerous. Hermer doesn’t understand government. He believes in the rule of lawyers, not the rule of law.
“If Keir Starmer had any backbone, he’d sack him. But will he risk upsetting his old friend and former donor? I doubt it.”
Lord Hermer used his lecture to say the Labour Government had a ‘policy of progressive realism’ that means it will never leave international conventions such as the ECHR.
Numerous senior politicians on the Right have called for Britain to leave the convention after it blocked Rwanda deportation flights.
Mrs Badenoch has stopped short of calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as other Conservative figures have advocated.
However, she suggested the UK would have to leave the convention if it stops the country from doing ‘what is right’.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said he would get rid of the ECHR, and told ITV in April that ‘we have to get back the ability to decide, can we really control our borders’.
In his lecture, the Attorney General said: ‘Our approach is a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster and in some spectrums of the media, that Britain abandons the constraints of international law in favour of raw power.
The European Court of Human Rights, where the convention is enforced, in Strasbourg in May
Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick (pictured in October), an advocate of ending Britain’s 72-year membership, said: ‘The idea you can reform the ECHR is fanciful’
‘This is not a new song. The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.
‘Because of the experience of what followed in 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.’
He conceded that ‘international law cannot stand still and rest on its laurels’, that it must be ‘critiqued and where necessary reformed and improved’ and that ‘we must be ready to reform where necessary’.
Education Minister Catherine McKinnell this morning said that his speech had been ‘quite thoughtful’.
And she doubled down on the link between quitting the ECHR and dictators, telling Times Radio: ‘Any discussion around withdrawing from the international stage just supports people and the agenda of people like [Vladimir] Putin.’
But critics point out that the ECHR is unlikely to bow to calls for reform amid accusations it has overstepped its remit in a string of cases.
Tory justice spokesman Mr Jenrick, an advocate of ending Britain’s 72-year membership, said: ‘The idea you can reform the ECHR is fanciful as it requires unanimity from all 46 signatories.
‘It is appalling Hermer would insinuate those who think we should leave the ECHR are like the Nazis.
‘[Foreign Secretary] David Lammy tried that disgusting smeer with Brexiteers and it didn’t work for him. It won’t work for Hermer either.
‘It seems Labour haven’t learned a thing.’
The row comes after complaints about Lord Hermer, who is a close friend of the Prime Minister, both having been human rights lawyers.
His suitability has also been questioned after it emerged that, before taking up the role last year, he repeatedly brought cases against the Government on behalf of terrorists, including 9/11 plotter Mustafa al-Hawsawi and jihadi bride Shamima Begum.
He also acted for former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA.
The Attorney General’s office was contacted for comment.
