Rachel Reeves fails to commit to ￡28 billion Green plan

       After weeks of dither, delay, u-turns, confusion and flip-flopping, Sir Keir Starmer is set to finally kill of his flagship policy to spend ￡28 billion a year on green investment.

       The news emerged last night, sparking confusing after Sir Keir said on Tuesday that the huge sum is “desperately needed” for his party’s clean power mission, and boasted he had been “unwavering” in backing the long-stated policy.

       The Labour leader is set to speak later today to confirm a long-speculated flip-flop, a move the Guardian has described as Sir Keir’s “biggest policy U-turn since becoming party leader”.

       The policy has caused nothing but headaches for the Labour Party since Rachel Reeves first announced it at their 2021 party conference.

       This morning the Tories went held nothing back in launching an all-out assault on the Labour leader’s shameless record of U-turns, beginning with a whopping 311-tweet thread, showing off all the times Labour MPs backed the policy.

       READ MORE: Sir Keir Starmer expected to confirm scaling back of ￡28bn green pledge

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       The trio have failed to agree over Labour's flagship green investment policy (Image: Getty)

       Michael Gove has led the charge this afternoon, tearing into Sir Keir as a “political jellyfish”.

       The top Minister said: “Brave Sir Keir runs away again. The inveterate invertebrate shows he has no plan & there is no principle he won’t ditch. He’s the jellyfish of politics - transparent, spineless & swept along by the tide”.

       Ed Miliband is under huge pressure, after previously claiming He, Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves “will never” back down from the costly policy.

       James Cleverly said: “This did not age well… I’m wondering if Keir and Rachel kept him in the dark, or did they tell him they were going to hang him out to dry".

       “U-turn after U-turn, flip-flop after flip-flop. Starmer hasn’t got a plan. He’s making it up as he goes along.”

       Tory HQ has also launched a new website, Where’s Ed?, counting up the days, hours and minutes since the shadow Net Zero secretary was last seen. They currently calculate it at over 140 days.

       Andrew Neil speculated whether Ed Miliband might quit over the flip-flop (Image: Getty)

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       News of today’s pending announcement also sparked fury among the left, with former Tony Blair advisor John McTernan telling Newsnight last night that the u-turn is “probably the most stupid decision the Labour Party’s made”.

       He asked: “If you don’t have a great cause - you want to change from this government, sure, but change to what? What’s the change Labour now offers? It’s very disappointing.”

       Sharon Graham, the Unite Union leader, said it “will confirm workers’ scepticism of the endless promises of jam tomorrow”.

       The Spectator’s Andrew Neil speculated whether the u-turn could spark a further crisis with the resignation of Ed Miliband, who has fought with Rachel Reeves in a failed attempt to keep the policy front and centre of his party’s election offering.

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       Mr Neil posted on X/Twitter: “I reckon this is about the 5th time it’s dropped this policy in the last 12 months”.

       “Perhaps this is the definitive ditching, in which case I expect we’ll wake up to Ed Miliband’s resignation from the shadow cabinet tomorrow. Or not.”

       The timing of the u-turn is additionally awkward, as this morning the New Statesman has published an interview with northern mayors Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham, both of whom call on Sir Keir not to change his mind.

       Andy Burnham said Labour must “stick to the pledge around green transition”, calling it: “the best possibility that we have, sitting here today, of a fund to reindustrialise the north of England in a good way… [It’s about] prosperity, and future-facing industry in all parts of the UK, and Labour’s commitment to that fund is really important in that regard”.

       Mr Rotherham suggested a failure to stick to the policy would signal “a lack of ambition” by a Labour government.

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       He asked: “Why wouldn’t you invest in something like that?”

       A new poll out this morning shows the public are unimpressed with Labour’s economic policies.

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