Britain’s finance minister Rachel Reeves is set to unveil plans to plug a $40 billion budget shortfall, but faces a growing political backlash and a raft of economic obstacles.
The annual budget is expected to include a series of tax increases to appease bond investors worried by the country’s hefty debt burden and languid economic growth, as well as measures to address cost-of-living concerns.
The myriad issues Reeves must resolve point to the scale of the challenge facing Britain’s Labour Party, whose progressive lawmakers want the government to enact left-wing policies, but which is also lagging in the polls to the upstart, hard-right Reform UK party. “This will be a historic budget,” Deutsche Bank’s Chief UK economist told CNBC.
