As I See It: Newark MP Robert Jenrick writes about opposing the Labour government’s budget.

Hot on the heels of subjecting 10 million pensioners to a cruel, cold winter by axing winter fuel payments, Labour has broken promises and ditched manifesto commitments — writes Robert Jenrick, Newark MP.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves lied through their teeth about not raising taxes before the election.

Starmer claims that “working people know who they are,” but evidently, he and his government do not. Labour’s confused rhetoric would have you believe that small business owners somehow do not qualify as “working people”. Talk about being out of touch with reality.

Many business owners in our constituency will be hit hard. The millions of small businesses in our country are the backbone of our economy, and now once-thriving enterprises will be decimated. Hiking employers’ National Insurance contributions and lowering the threshold at which it’s paid is a punishment for being entrepreneurial – a spirit we should incentivise and reward, not penalise. It’s anti-growth, anti-business, and a shameful political choice that undermines innovation and ambition.

Reeves promised stability, but her doom and gloom budget has sent borrowing costs soaring and the pound falling. By her own admission, the Chancellor has conceded that Labour’s budget will even damage wage growth – a dire forecast for life in Britain under an incompetent Labour government. The so-called “Party of the working people” is seemingly happy to make decisions that financially burden the very people they claim to represent.

Labour has also declared war on rural communities, with their destructive tax on family farms.

Hardworking farmers always thought they could hand their farms down to their children and grandchildren, not have to face selling up to pay the taxman. Family farms are part of the definition of being British, the custodians of our landscape and part of our national identity.

This feels like the last straw to many farmers, who were already struggling to cope.

As farmers grapple with rising costs they cannot absorb or avoid, the impact will ripple through the supply chain and the country will feel the strain on British farming in their pockets. Disastrous political choices by Labour will make it increasingly difficult to access affordable, homegrown produce, as local farmers are forced to raise prices just to have a chance of survival.

Labour just doesn’t appreciate or understand the farming community. They’re sacrificing our food security and rural way of life, all so they can satisfy their trade union paymasters.

This is a betrayal of the dedicated farmers across our constituency, for whom I have the utmost respect and gratitude.

There’s still time for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to think again, and I’m going to fight this all the way.