LONDON: Britain’s Labour party on Thursday launches its general election manifesto, hoping that a promise to get the economy growing again will catapult it into power after 14 years in opposition.
Labour has been consistently some 20 points ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives for nearly two years, making its leader Keir Starmer a virtual shoe-in as the country’s next prime minister if polls are correct.
But Starmer, 61, still has work to do before polling day on July 4 to overcome persistent Tory claims about Labour profligacy with public finances and warnings that it will increase personal taxes.
The manifesto launch comes two days after the Tories promised voters more tax cuts, in a campaign where the affordability of the main parties’ spending plans have come under close scrutiny.
In details trailed in advance by the party, Starmer will describe Labour’s blueprint for government as a “manifesto for wealth creation” and call it “our number one priority.”
“The mandate we seek from Britain at this election is for economic growth,” the former human rights lawyer and chief public prosecutor will tell party members in Manchester, northwest England.
“Growth is our core business — the end and the means of national renewal,” he will add, promising sustained economic growth to drive up living standards.
To get there, Labour is promising to restore economic stability after the turbulence of recent years that saw inflation hit 11.1 percent in October 2022 — its highest in 40 years.
It vowed to introduce tough new spending rules to allow businesses to plan, a cap on corporation tax at 25 percent and an industrial strategy for longer-term investment, particularly in green tech and AI.
Starmer and his likely finance minister Rachel Reeves look set to have little room for maneuver, however, with the economy stagnant in April after emerging from recession in the first quarter.
Both Labour and the Tories have ruled out increasing the VAT sales tax, income tax rates and National Insurance, which pays for state health care, pensions and unemployment, if they win.
Economists said the incoming government could get some momentum from expected falls in interest rates and inflation by the end of the year.
Many Labour policies — from continued support for Ukraine and scrapping the Tories’ plan to deport failed asylum seekers to Rwanda, to recognizing Palestinian sovereignty as part of the peace process — have been drip-fed over months.
As in 1997, when Tony Blair won a landslide after 18 years of Tory rule, Starmer knows that he needs to reassure a jittery electorate that Labour can provide stability and economic competence.
At the last election in 2019, his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn stood on a radical platform that included proposals for sweeping renationalization of key industries, and tax hikes for high earners.
Starmer, who took over after Labour was routed by Boris Johnson’s Tories and has dragged the party back to the less threatening center ground, and will vow it is “pro business and pro worker.”
Britons have endured an unprecedented period of political upheaval, with five Tory prime ministers since 2010, and three in just four months in 2022.
Much of that was the result of Brexit, the country’s tortuous departure from the European Union, but also self-inflicted wounds such as Liz Truss’s short-lived tenure, when her unfunded tax cuts spooked the markets and crashed the pound.
One of Starmer’s first tasks if he finds himself in Downing Street on July 5 will be to prepare for a crunch NATO summit in Washington the following week, and to host a meeting of European leaders.

BRUSSELS, Belgium: NATO is set to take over the coordination of arms deliveries to Ukraine from the US, the alliance’s chief said on Wednesday, in a bid to safeguard the military aid mechanism as NATO-skeptic Donald Trump bids for a second term as US president.

“I expect that ministers will approve a plan for NATO to lead the coordination of security assistance and training to Ukraine,” Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on the eve of a two-day meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.Hours before, Hungary had given up its resistance to the Ukraine support package NATO aims to agree at its Washington summit in July, comprising a financial pledge and the transfer to NATO of the coordination of arms supplies and training.
During a visit by Stoltenberg to Budapest, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country would not block NATO decisions on providing support for Ukraine but had agreed that it would not be involved.
He added he had received assurances from Stoltenberg that Hungary would not have to provide funding for Ukraine or send personnel there.
Hungary has been at odds with other NATO countries over Orban’s continued cultivation of close ties to Russia and refusal to send arms to Ukraine, with Budapest’s foreign minister last month labelling plans to help the war-torn nation a “crazy mission.”
Stoltenberg had proposed that NATO take on coordination of international military aid for Ukraine, giving the alliance a more direct role in the war against Russia’s invasion while stopping well short of committing its own forces.
The move is widely seen as an effort to provide a degree of “Trump-proofing” by putting coordination under a NATO umbrella.
But diplomats acknowledge such a move may have limited effect, as the US is NATO’s dominant power and provides the majority of weaponry to Ukraine. So if Washington wanted to slash Western aid to Kyiv, it would still be able to do so.
Stoltenberg has also asked allies to keep up funding military aid for Ukraine at the same level as they have since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, adding up to some 40 billion euros per year.
On Wednesday, he said he was hopeful allies would find agreement on a financial pledge before the summit to make the support for Ukraine more robust and more predictable.

UK readies $309.69 million aid

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will announce up to 242 million pounds ($309.69 million) in bilateral assistance to Ukraine in the G7 summit, his office said on Wednesday, to support immediate humanitarian, energy and stabilization needs for Ukraine.
“We must be decisive and creative in our efforts to support Ukraine and end Putin’s illegal war at this critical moment,” Sunak said ahead of the summit.
The Group of Seven nations and the European Union are also considering how to use profits generated by Russian assets immobilized in the West to provide Ukraine with a large up-front loan to secure Kyiv’s financing for 2025.