As of: February 16, 2024, 4:08 p.m
By: Tadhg Nagel
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Rishi Sunak came into office promising to stimulate the economy.
Now Britain is falling into recession – just before the general election.
LONDON - The United Kingdom has slipped into recession just months before a general election, official figures showed on Thursday (February 15).
This undermined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's promise to boost economic growth.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was unable to keep his most important election promise.
© IMAGO/Tayfun Salci
Britain's gross domestic product fell 0.3 percent in the final three months of 2023, after contracting 0.1 percent in the July-September period, according to Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS), the country's national statistics agency .
A recession is usually defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.
Britain's economy is in crisis: "All important sectors are declining"
“All major sectors fell in the quarter, with manufacturing, construction and wholesale trade the biggest drags on growth, partly offset by gains in hotels and vehicle and machinery rentals,” said Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics the ONS, in a statement.
The ONS estimates that Britain's GDP will rise by a meager 0.1 percent in 2023.
This is the worst result since 2009, when the economy was still suffering from the global financial crisis, if one does not take into account the year 2020, which was affected by the pandemic.
The weak increase in economic output last year follows growth of 4.3 percent in 2022.
Analysts say British households will suffer a fall in living standards between the elections for the first time since World War II, according to
Reuters
news agency .
Britain's economy is just 1 percent above its level at the end of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck - only Germany is doing worse among G7 countries.
Rishi Sunak promised voters economic growth - now he's getting the payoff
“For the whole of 2023, the economy is broadly stagnant,” said McKeown - news that is extremely inconvenient for Sunak and his ruling Conservative party, the Tories, ahead of the general election due in May this year.
The British prime minister vowed to voters last year to boost the economy as one of his key promises.
His Conservative Party has dominated British politics for the past seven decades and is known for its economic prowess.
But according to opinion polls, Labor now enjoys more confidence in the economy.
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The opposition Labor Party was able to achieve a sensational victory in the by-elections held on Thursday (February 15).
In Wellingborough, the party won a large majority of votes - 13,844 out of around 18,000, as the British
Guardian
writes.
According to the newspaper, this is the biggest swing from the Tories to Labor since 1994 and the second biggest since the Second World War.
In Kingswood, the Labor Party easily held its own against the Conservatives - and took the seat from the Tories for the first time in 14 years.
This is reported by the British TV channel
itv
.
The signs are good for Labor - but the road to election victory is still long
In total, according to the
Guardian
, the Conservative government has lost ten by-elections in a single parliament - more than any other government since the 1960s.
This supports the prediction that Labor will win a landslide at the next general election.
Polls over the last year have consistently shown that the party could be on the path to victory after 14 years of Conservative leadership.
However, Labor is far from winning the election.
According to a survey by market research firm Savata on Wednesday (February 14), Labor's lead over the Conservatives had fallen by seven percentage points to its lowest level since June 2023.
This is what the Reuters
news agency writes
.
The opposition party had previously removed a green growth spending target from the agenda.
In addition, the party has recently had to repeatedly struggle with accusations of anti-Semitism.
(tpn)