Keir Starmer pledges to target dividends and shares in tax raid on middle classes

Sir Keir Starmer vowed yesterday to raise taxes on shares and dividends if he wins the next election – in a raid on the middle classes.

The Labour leader said he wanted to increase taxes in a ‘fairer’ way than Boris Johnson, describing the Prime Minister’s national insurance hike as ‘the wrong tax at the wrong time’.

But asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he would scrap the rise if he became Prime Minister, Sir Keir would not say if he would do so.

He merely pledged to bring in fairer increases such as targeting ‘stocks and shares and dividends’, although he said it was too early to bring forward details.

Last month, national insurance went up by 1.25 percentage points to raise £12billion a year for NHS and social care spending.

Sir Keir said: ‘We would have a fair tax system that would look across the board at how people make their money, not just working people in work, not just business people paying national insurance.

‘Stocks and shares and dividends, we would look across the piece at a fair tax system to raise the necessary money.’

Asked how he’d raise the cash, he said: ‘We would do it in a fair way. We would be fair to working people.

‘We would go aggressively after money lost to fraud, money lost to bad contracts.’ 

And quizzed over whether he would scrap the insurance hike rise if Labour wins the next election, Sir Keir said: ‘We absolutely would not impose it at the moment, it’s the wrong tax at the wrong time.

‘What we will do when we get towards an election is we will set out all our proposals in relation to spend and cost.’

The Labour leader said he wanted to increase taxes in a better way than Boris Johnson (pictured), describing the Prime Minister’s national insurance hike as ‘the wrong tax at the wrong time’. But asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he would scrap the rise if he became Prime Minister, Sir Keir would not say if he would do so

He added: ‘Overall, the cost of this government is that families will be £2,000 worse off and the Government’s got no answer to that for so many families.

‘There’s a reason why the other G7 countries are not increasing tax in the middle of a cost of living crisis and that’s because they know it’s self-defeating.’

It comes after it emerged last week that Labour’s levelling up spokesman Lisa Nandy reportedly warned Sir Keir to focus on the cost of living rather than on rows over Partygate.

But yesterday he said that the cost of living crisis ‘is the number one issue’ for voters.