People are not daft... there is no way Labour can come back from this

Following Labour's manifestobreaking Budget, Shadow Housing Secretary Sir James Cleverly is even more confident Labour can be kicked out of office at the next election

- David Williamson

LABOUR cannot win the next election and Rachel Reeves torched its credibility when she broke a manifesto pledge by hiking taxes on working people, according to Sir James Cleverly. The former Home and Foreign Secretary is speaking to the Sunday Express in the shadow cabinet room in the Palace of Westminster - but he now has real hope that the men and women who sit around its table can escape Opposition and oust Labour.

"They have lost the next general election," he says. "There is no way they're coming back from this."

Labour promised ahead of last year's election it would "not increase taxes on working people". But on Wednesday, the Chancellor announced income tax thresholds would be frozen for a further three years, until 2030-31. This means more workers will pay a higher rate of tax and more pensioners will have to pay income tax.

"It is, in every definition, a direct breach of their manifesto commitments," Sir James insists.

"The British people are not daft and they will feel this and they will feel it worse by the time of the general election." He says he would be "amazed" if Sir Keir Starmer is still Labour leader when the election comes around.

"I actually think Labour's future is now set," he says. "They've got a reputation for dishonesty.

"Any idea that it's a party of integrity is way out the window now. They don't have a plan for the country and they're not going to create one between now and the next general election."

The fates of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are "bound together", he argues: "The only reason she is still in the job is because Starmer knows that if, like a number of other women in the Labour party, he throws her under the bus, this time he's going with her."

When asked if he believes Ms Reeves should resign, he admits: "The really partisan bit of me thinks the longer she stays around, the better, because she's doing so much damage to the credibility of the Labour party."