A month before the July 4 elections, UK PM Rishi Sunak and Labour opposition Keir Starmer were head-to-head on how to boost Britain’s economy, where Sunak accused labour of wanting to increase taxes if, they come back to power on Tuesday.
During the debate, both conservative Rishi Sunak and labour’s starmer stuck to their campaign lines in their first debate, weeks before general election’s opinion polls, which predict labour’s win.
In the discussions, Sunak asserted, that he came with a plan to revive UK’s slow economic growth, while starmer accused conservatives for 14 years of economic chaos.
Later in the heated discussion, they debated over cost-of-living crisis, long waiting lists in public health service and immigration reduction.
Also, the voter’s questions also reflected the issues which, they were dealing with like cost-of-living crisis, Education’s lower standards and long waits for health service.
However, after debate, an opinion poll was taken, which suggested, that Sunak had won the contest.
Earlier, echoing labour’s attack line, rishi Sunak said, ‘Mark my words, Labour will raise your taxes. (It) is in their DNA. Your work, your car, your pension, you name it, Labour will tax it’
Notably, starmer didn’t immediately deny the charges, but he called the charge of raising taxes by 2,000 pounds” ($2,550) as ‘nonsense.’
Starmer repeatedly asserted, it doesn’t plan to raise income tax or national Insurance social security contributions, after coming to power.
Later, starmer accused conservative party for 14 years of economic chaos and questioned sunak over the introduction of mandatory national service.
But sunak, seemed to recover some ground with the audience, when he layed his plans for tackling immigration.
He portrayed the deportation of illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda as an action that prioritizes the country’s security over any foreign court.
Keir Starmer also layed out his plans for immigration. Where, claims of asylum seekers will be processed according to international law.
After that, sunak also declared, that unlike Labour, his party had a plan.
This two-leader debate comes around the time, when a populist leader Nigel Farage declared his intention to contest the election, which is considered a major blow to sunak, as this brexit campaigner is likely to split the votes of right-wing groups.
Addressing his campaign launch, Farage declared, that he’ll challenge both labour and conservatives.