Sir Keir Starmer in huge u-turn as he officially ditches flagship pledge to spend £28bn on green projects
SIR Keir Starmer will today ditch a flagship pledge to spend £28billion each year on green projects - marking one of the biggest u-turns of his leadership.
The Labour boss is officially abandoning the eye-watering figure following relentless Tory attacks on how the party will pay for it without hiking taxes.
It comes after weeks of chaos over the plan since The Sun first revealed the intention to drop the £28billion figure last month.
The confusion saw Sir Keir commit to the pledge just this week after Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves refused 10 times to do the same, sparking speculation of a split.
And only yesterday Labour shadow ministers and spokespeople insisted the Green Prosperity Plan remained their policy.
But this afternoon Sir Keir and Ms Reeves will together junk the £28billion figure in a bid to draw a line under the carnage.
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The mission to reach clean power by 2030 will remain, just without the enormous price tag.
Ms Reeves first made the pledge to invest in low-carbon infrastructure at the party’s 2021 conference with a borrowing hike.
She had already downgraded the pledge to “ramp up” to the spending ambition in the second half of a first Labour government .
Today Tory MPs accused the party leader of another “flip-flop” which has become a regular attack line.
Laura Trott, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: “This is a serious moment which confirms Labour have no plan for the UK, creating uncertainty for business and our economy.
“On the day that Labour are finalising their manifesto, Keir Starmer is torpedoing what he has claimed to be his central economic policy purely for short-term campaigning reasons.”
Even Labour MPs put the boot into the u-turn, with Barry Gardiner calling it “economically illiterate”.
The Sun first revealed in January that Sir Keir would ditch the £28billion following a row with shadow climate minister Ed Miliband.
A senior source had said: “We’re going to drop the figure altogether. We’ll keep the promise to turn Britain into a clean energy superpower, but the £28billion has just become an albatross around our neck.”