Keir Starmer would do ‘irreversible damage’ to Britain within 100 days of taking power if Labour wins the election on Thursday, Rishi Sunak declares today.
In a dramatic last-ditch bid to prevent voters from handing Labour a super-majority, the Prime Minister highlights a series of controversial policies which he says Sir Keir would introduce immediately after entering No 10 – including scrapping the Rwanda migrant scheme, imposing VAT on school fees and ‘fixing’ the electoral system to give the vote to 16-year-olds, who tend to be Labour-leaning.
Mr Sunak said: ‘It’s clear that Labour would do irreversible damage within just 100 days of coming to power.
‘Whether it’s announcing a suite of tax rises or throwing thousands of families’ plans for the autumn term into chaos with children wondering if they will have a desk at school to go back to. Labour would throw open our borders with their illegal migrant amnesty… making us the soft-touch migrant capital of the world.’
The dramatic plea comes as a Mail on Sunday poll found that a majority of voters are concerned about the risks of a Labour ‘supermajority’. The Deltapoll survey also found that 38 per cent of people said they expected an incoming Labour government to hike taxes.
Rishi Sunak (pictured) declared Keir Starmer would do ‘irreversible damage’ to Britain
Sir Keir Starmer speaks at a general election campaign event in London
Additionally, senior Tories warned that Labour’s policy of giving votes to 16-year-olds amounts to ‘vote-rigging’ – and would make Britain resemble the Communist state of Cuba.
Writing in this newspaper, Esther McVey, the ‘Minister for Common Sense’ said: ‘Sir Keir Starmer is too scared to fight elections fair and square so he must resort to these underhand tactics to rig elections in his favour.’
Sunak’s warning comes as:
- The election faces possible legal challenges as thousands of postal ballots in at least 13 constituencies – eight of them marginal – have not been delivered on time;
- Labour strategists are ‘praying for rain’ in the first weeks of any Starmer administration to deter small-boat Channel crossings that could mire the new government in rows over migrant policy;
- Tories called for a Whitehall investigation into concerns that Nigel Farage is being exploited by Russian spies trying to disrupt the election, as Kremlin-backed propaganda pages on Facebook were reportedly making posts in support of his Reform party;
- Reform reported Channel 4 to the Electoral Commission for releasing footage of party canvasser Andrew Parker using a racial slur to describe Sunak, with party chiefs claiming Parker was ‘a plant’.
- Reform dropped three candidates following reports they had made offensive comments – although Edward Oakenfull in Derbyshire Dales, Robert Lomas in Barnsley North, and Leslie Lille in Southend East and Rochford will still appear on ballot papers as Reform candidates as it is too late for them to be removed;
- Sir Keir was privately warned that his policy over Gaza was likely to cost him seats in areas with a high number of Muslim voters.
Esther McVey (pictured) said: ‘Sir Keir Starmer is too scared to fight elections fair and square so he must resort to these underhand tactics to rig elections in his favour’
Migrants arrive on the beach in Dungeness on an RNLI lifeboat. Sunak says Sir Keir would scrap the Rwanda migrant scheme immediately after entering No 10
In his warning about giving Sir Keir a ‘blank cheque’, Sunak said that scrapping the Rwanda scheme would be effectively be an amnesty for illegal migrants, with thousands being released on to the streets.
He claimed that a wave of tax rises in an emergency Budget he expected to be called just weeks into a Labour government would take the tax burden to its highest level in history.
The Prime Minister said Labour had conspicuously refused to rule out announcing a revaluation of council tax bands, which could see four million households pay on average £1,230 extra each year, and imposing a pay-per-mile road tax in keeping with London mayor Sadiq Khan’s hated Ulez scheme in the capital.
Sunak said that Sir Keir has also not denied plans to raise capital gains tax or inheritance tax, and highlighted deputy leader Angela Rayner’s pledge to introduce French-style union laws – which Tory sources said would ‘throw the employment market into the deep freeze and trigger wage cuts’.
Labour’s plan to add VAT to school fees would, said Sunak, drive up to 134,000 independent schoolchildren into the state sector by September – leaving thousands of children unsure whether they will have a place for the start of the school year
The PM also claimed that Labour would build on the green belt, hit taxpayers to fund its green targets and sign a ‘youth mobility scheme deal’ with the EU to allow for free movement of all under 30s.
Sunak said that Labour ‘cannot be trusted’, adding: ‘We must not surrender our taxes, our borders and our security to them’.
Last night, Lord Cameron echoed those comments, labelling Sir Keir ‘hopelessly naive’ about the dangerous state of the world.
Sunak also highlighted deputy leader Angela Rayner’s pledge to introduce French-style union laws. Rayner(left) is seen sitting next to Keir Starmer (centre) and his wife Victoria (right)
Lord Cameron (right) echoed the comments made by Sunak (left), adding: We must not surrender our taxes, our borders and our security to them’
The Foreign Secretary warned that Labour will undermine Britain’s security unless it commits to raising defence spending.
He told the Sunday Times: ‘Keir Starmer is in danger of weakening Britain’s position and weakening Britain’s defences. All in a way that’s completely unnecessary.’
And in this newspaper, former Business Secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg warned that Labour’s borders policy amounted to a ‘welcome mat’ for all migrants, with the scrapping of the Rwanda scheme immediately adding 90,000 people to the asylum queue.
