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Peter Cripps voted for Labour at the last general election because he was desperate to get rid of the Conservatives. But he wouldn’t vote for the party again, not least after the chancellor’s make-or-break Budget on Wednesday.
As he sat outside his shop Car, Home and Garden in Sheerness on Kent’s Isle of Sheepey, the 76-year-old told The Independent: “I’ve lived on the isle for 50 years, this is the worst I’ve ever known it and this Budget is not going to turn that around.”
Rachel Reeves outlined in her fiscal statement on Wednesday, unveiling £26bn worth of tax rises in an attempt to plug the gaps in the public finances. The chancellor’s tax hikes will be delivered by freezing thresholds, dragging millions more into paying higher taxes, and a host of other measures, including a new “mansion tax” on properties worth more than £2m and a fresh levy on landlords.
She also announced the government will lift the two-child benefit cap and raise the minimum wage in an attempt to ease the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis.
Labour will need the Budget to have been well-received by swing voters in places such as Sheerness if the party is to turn opinion polls around and stand a chance of holding onto power at the next general election.
The port town’s constituency, Sittingbourne and Sheppey, was a Labour gain at the last election, with Kevin McKenna beating Conservative candidate Aisha Cuthbart by a margin of 355 votes, with Reform UK a close third.
Mr Cripps wanted change because he felt his town’s high street had declined, and he hoped Labour would address that. But now, he feels let down by the government and does not trust it to grow the economy.
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He explained: “They’ve (Labour) come in, and they’ve made it even worse. I certainly wouldn’t vote for them again.”
Asked why, he said: “I think this country is in such a mess. We need jobs, we need manufacturing. On this islan,d we used to have a steelworks – gone, toilet factory – gone, we had the docks. It’s all gone. We have no manufacturing. Until we get jobs, it won’t change.”
Though Mr Cripps liked some measures of the Budget – he is glad Ms Reeves decided to scrap the two-child benefit cap – he is worried by a rise in the minimum wage. He said it is something he said a business like his cannot afford to pay.
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Similarly unimpressed by the Budget was Stanley Ward, 68, who runs butcher’s shop Kent Fresh Food, and is also a landlord with three residential properties.
“I’m worried about the landlord tax because they’re going to take money out”, he told The Independent. “You don’t want to keep putting rent up because it’s not fair on the tenant.
“I’ve got good tenants, and I don’t want to upset them by putting the tax up. But I think it could backfire, I think a lot of landlords will sell because it’s ridiculous what they keep doing to us.”
‘As a business owner, it’s all just gone up’
Like Sittingbourne and Sheppey, Ilford North is one of Labour’s slimmest marginal seats – the constituency has swung between Labour and the Conservatives since it was established in 1945.
Wes Streeting has been its MP since 2015, but the health secretary survived a scare to hold onto his seat at last year’s general election as he beat independent candidate Leanne Mohamad by just 528 votes.
But a vote Mr Streeting cannot count on is Stephen Laycock, 64, who owns Hi-Tide chip shop on High Street in Barkingside, and described the Budget as “terrible”.
He told The Independent: “I voted Conservative at the last election. I’ve never voted Labour and I never will. I don’t think they’re helping the people they should be helping.”
He used his own business as an example, saying: “I don’t class myself as high-end business-wise. We’re just a family business; we’ve been here 54 years, and we’re certainly not going to be here for 54 more.
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“It’s not just the budget, though I think that was disgusting, I feel like everything is tax, tax, tax.”
Like Mr Cripps, Mr Laycock is concerned about how he will cover a rise in the minimum wage, which Ms Reeves introduced so that “those on low incomes are properly rewarded for their hard work.”
He said: “I’m not getting the footfall, nobody’s got money. National Insurance went up last time. As a business owner, it’s all just gone up.
“We used to pay £74 for a box of cod, they’re £400 now. How do I make money on that? Without tax relief, there will be nothing at all. Potatoes should be £7 a bag but they’re fetching £24. You can’t absorb that.”
Around 20 miles away, in the London constituency of Kensington and Bayswater, Ms Reeves’s mansion tax was a cause of concern. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a quarter of properties hit by the tax are in just three London council boroughs; Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, and Camden.
Kensington and Bayswater is another parliamentary seat with a thin majority – the new constituency was won by Labour’s Joe Powell in 2024. Kensington resident Caroline was concerned about the tax, citing it as an example of Labour’s approach to the wealthy.
She told The Independent: “Thank God my property is not worth even half of £2m. They’ve already chased away most of the non-doms and well, everybody, who’s rich, which I’m not so sure it’s clever to tax the rich even more. They’ll just disappear.
“It’s the old-fashioned Labour thing, just spending, spending, spending and taxing.”
According to fellow Kensington local Helen, the tax’s threshold is too low. She said: “£2m doesn’t buy you much here. I’ve been living here for 40 years, and the prices have gone up, but I, why should I move from my home? Because I can’t afford a wealth tax.
“ I think let’s get people back to work. Our young people are leaving in droves because there’s no future for the hardworking professionals.”
More cheerful about the Budget were Richard and Jean Whitehead in Ilford North. The two retirees are Labour voters and believe Sir Keir Starmer’s government needs to be given more time to turn around the nation’s fortunes.
Jean said: “I think this budget will put some money into people’s pockets. The two-child benefit cap coming off is really important for some and the increase in the minimum wage will be beneficial to a lot of people.
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“But on the other side, say for hospitality, if they’ve got to pay that increased minimum wage, they might not employ that person because they can’t afford it.”
Richard is concerned by the impact of tax thresholds being frozen and resulting fiscal drag, but he is willing to wait and see how the policies outlined in the Budget plays out,
He said: “They can’t turn the tide in a year and a bit. It’s going to take at least two terms for the tide to start turning. It’s going to be hard first of all and I don’t think anyone thought it wasn’t going to be.”
Sir Keir said on Thursday that the Budget “asked everybody to make a contribution” in order to protect public services and help people struggling with the cost of living.
Regarding the tax burden, the prime minister argued that his government had “done the least possible we can” to impact people and had “done it in a fair way”.
The Independent has approached The Treasury for comment.
