Keir Starmer has one desperate card left to play – it’ll ruin Britain | Personal Finance | Finance

The Prime Minister is reeling after Thursday’s elections as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK knocked him for six.

We could even be witnessing the end of two-party politics after the hash Labour and the Tories have made of the UK.

Starmer was never a gifted or instinctive politician. He’s admitted himself that he doesn’t really get it.

Well, he’s getting it now. Right in the neck.

Westminster is awash with rumours that the PM has had enough and won’t bother to fight the next election.

Incredibly, the frontrunner to replace him is Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who’s even more out of touch with voters.

Yet amid the mutiny and the misery, Starmer still has one card to play.

We’d all better hope he doesn’t use it.

Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves inherited an economic mess, and immediately conspired to make it worse.

Reeves’s decision to axe the Winter Fuel Payment for 10 million pensioners saved a meagre £1.5billion, but sunk her reputation for good.

Labour’s strategy of terrifying everyone with threats of tax hikes in the autumn Budget killed growth stone dead.

Reeves’s £25billion employer’s national insurance raid has piled yet more pressure on cash-strapped businesses and destroyed thousands of jobs.

At least Reeves seems to have learned one lesson. With taxes at a 70-year high, they can’t go higher.

In her Spring Statement, she slashed disability benefits instead, triggering another furious backlash while saving just £3.5billion.

Reeves won’t be in a hurry to cut spending again either.

The economy now faces an earthquake as US President Donald Trump unleashes his stupid, self-defeating trade war.

Desperate times could force Starmer into desperate measures. He only has one trick left in his locker.

To borrow more money.

Reeves has imposed strict fiscal rules. Debt as a share of GDP must fall within five years. Day-to-day spending must be covered by tax revenues.

These are supposed to show discipline. To reassure the markets that she won’t do a Liz Truss.

But they tie Starmer’s hands at a moment of crisis.

Labour daren’t tax more. It daren’t cut more. The only lever left is borrowing.

Plenty in Labour would love that. A long line of left-wing economists will insist it’s doable.

They’re deluded, of course.

Last year, the UK borrowed a staggering £151billion. We’re running an annual budget deficit of 5%. National debt stands at 100% of GDP.

These are dire numbers. Piling more debt onto the nation’s shoulders would be reckless.

That didn’t stop the Tories doing it for 14 years. And it may not stop Starmer either.

If the PM gives in to temptation, it will buy Starmer time but tip the UK into a fiscal death spiral. So what will he do?