Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to lower the voting age to 16 – as Labour and the Tories kicked off the first weekend of the general election campaign.
On a campaign visit to Stafford, the Labour leader confirmed plans to follow Scotland and Wales in extending the vote to a further 1.5 million people, telling reporters: “If you can work, if you can pay tax, if you can serve in your armed forces, then you ought to be able to vote.”
The “extremely straightforward” legislation will likely even appear as soon as the King’s Speech, a Labour source told The Times, which estimated that such a move could flip eight Tory seats red in England alone. It comes as Rishi Sunak is scrambling to find more than 190 candidates amid the largest exodus of Tory MPs since the Second World War, with 78 now announcing they are stepping down at the July election.
Following a morning meeting with local veterans in his constituency in which he warned the world was becoming more dangerous, the PM’s whereabouts on Saturday afternoon were unclear. Minister Bim Afolami was forced to reject suggestions Mr Sunak was “taking the day off” but Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth accused the PM of “hiding away in his mansion”.
Sir Keir took a swipe at the departures of senior Tories Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom, claiming that, if Mr Gove “has effectively lost faith in what Rishi Sunak is putting before the electorate, it does beg the question as to why the voters should have faith in what Rishi Sunak is putting forward”.
“They have effectively got off the bus, because they don’t think the bus is going anywhere, I do think that’s significant,” he said.
The Labour leader was forced to defend his party’s decision to rebrand its package of workers’ rights pledges – from the “New Deal” to “Labour’s plan to make work pay” – after Unite union chief Sharon Graham warned the plans had “more holes than Swiss cheese”.
Sir Keir denied he was watering down policies on areas like zero-hours contracts, parental leave and sick pay, despite Ms Graham warning that “the number of caveats and get-outs means it is in danger of becoming a bad bosses’ charter”.
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Saturday she wanted to see lower taxes for workers, but insisted that “unlike the Tories” she would not make pledges she cannot keep.
Pressed by reporters during a meeting with supermarket workers to talk about the cost of living crisis, Ms Reeves insisted Labour had no plans to raise taxes beyond its proposed levies on private schools and wealthy non-doms to help fund improvements in public services.
It came after the right-wing Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank cautioned that the state of public finances hangs over both major parties’ election campaigns “like a dark cloud”, in a stark warning that the next government may be forced into tax rises or cuts to public services.
Reports that the PM was readying himself to “double down” on his stalled Rwanda scheme by announcing hopes for copycat schemes with other countries were overshadowed by the news that a further 288 people crossed the Channel in small boats – bringing the total this year to more than 10,000.
In another blow to Mr Sunak, The Independent revealed that the boss of childcare firm Koru Kids, who was backed by his wife Akshata Murty and hosted at a Downing Street reception, was endorsing Labour – warning that the Tories “are not serious people” after seeing how infighting had hampered key policies to help parents.
Sir Ed Davey’s party was also continuing its trail across the southeast on Saturday, with the Lib Dem leader hitting two marginal constituencies to highlight sewage-dumping as a key electoral battleground in areas near the coast.
The party leader was out doorstepping in education secretary Gillian Keegan’s constituency of Chichester, where he hopes to flip the Tory majority on 4 July. The Lib Dems claimed that party analysis shows water company bosses have pocketed some £54m in bonuses since 2019 as they announced plans for a new, strengthened water industry regulator to replace Ofwat.
And Reform Party leader Richard Tice officially launched his campaign for the constituency of Boston and Skegness on Saturday, channelling Donald Trump’s famous campaign slogan by declaring: “This great nation of ours…. we’ve got to make it great again” in a brief speech to supporters.
Additional reporting by PA
