I’m glad we can now talk about Brexit damage, says Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting has said he is delighted that the government can now speak about the problems caused by Brexit, as the prime minister gears up to blame the UK’s exit from the European Union for Britain’s ailing economy.

Speaking on a panel at the Cliveden Literary Festival, the health secretary said the country is facing an “enormous amount of jeopardy”.

“We had over a decade of low productivity, low growth, and therefore you end up a with high burden of taxation and people paying more through their taxes and feeling they are getting less because they are”, Mr Streeting said.

Asked how much he thinks Brexit is to blame for these problems, he said: “It’s part of it. There’s no doubt that that’s the other problem we’re dealing with.

“I’m glad that Brexit is a problem whose name we now dare speak.”

It comes after sources told The Times the prime minister will blame Nigel Farage and Brexit for Britain’s expected downturn in productivity at November’s Budget, as part of a new attack on the Reform UK leader.

Treasury officials are bracing for the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to lower its forecasts for productivity growth – a downgrade likely to create an extra shortfall of around £20bn at November’s Budget. The shortfall is expected to be filled by a swathe of tax rises.

Sir Keir and chancellor Rachel Reeves are reportedly planning to argue that this downgrade would not have happened were it not for Brexit, pinning the blame on the Reform leader for leading the campaign to take Britain out of the EU.

While the health secretary said he has “enormous respect” for people who voted to leave the EU, he said there had not been a big enough debate about the economic problems it caused.

“This has been my frustration about it … we were warned it was going to have an economic impact and it has. And it’s hit our country hard, so we’re having to deal with Brexit”, he said.

“We’re having to deal with the structural problems in the British economy, and we are doing that by creating stability and the conditions in which people can invest confidently in our country, recognising that governments don’t create growth, but we can help to create the conditions for businesses to grow and thrive, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”

It comes afterThe Independent revealed Brexit has cost UK business £37bn a year as a result of a 5 per cent drop in trade with the bloc.

While the government has gone some way to remedy the drag on trade, signing a fresh cooperation agreement with the bloc earlier this year, there are fears it still won’t go far enough to offset the barriers caused by the UK’s exit from the EU.

The government has previously been reluctant to criticise Brexit, for fear critics will seize on it as evidence that Labour wants to take Britain back into the EU.

But in recent weeks, the prime minister has been ramping up his attacks on Reform UK and the role Nigel Farage played in taking Britain out of the bloc as part of an attempt to claw back Labour’s struggling approval ratings.

Sir Keir used the Labour conference in Liverpool to claim his party is in “a fight for the soul of the country” with Reform UK, hitting back against the “lies and division” of the right-wing party’s populism.