Labour says UK facing Brexit 'unprepared and ill-equipped'

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell says the Autumn statement proves Britain is facing Brexit "unprepared and ill-equipped".

Mr McDonnell said the statement places on record the "abject failure" of six years of Tory rule.

It is Labour's first response to Chancellor Philip Hammond's forecast that government borrowing will be billions of pounds higher for this year and for 2017.

"We now face Brexit, the greatest economic challenge of a generation, and we face it unprepared and ill-equipped," he said.

He said the Tory handling of Brexit was "chaotic" and offered no hope for future prosperity.

"The figures speak for themselves," he said. "Growth down, wage growth down, business investment down, and their own deficit target failed.

"The debt target failed, the welfare cap failed."

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The verdict could not be clearer, he said. "The so-called long-term economic plan has failed."

Mr McDonnell said that Conservative policies are responsible for the "Just About Managing" families.

He said after six years he was expecting a change of economic direction, but instead it was a new Conservative leadership with no answers to the problems facing the country.

Mr McDonnell called for the return of a 50p tax band for the highest paid, and says the increase in the living wage still leaves people with less than they need to live on.

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He attacked changes in Universal Credit, saying the Government was betraying people who depended on it.

The Government was failing the NHS, he said, and he feared patients would face a meltdown this winter.

And he said there were no new ideas in the statement.

"Only weeks ago the Prime Minister offered a hope of change," he said. "The Chancellor offered to reset economic policy.

"Today we've seen the very people the Prime Minister wanted to champion betrayed. The Chancellor has failed to break with the economic strategy of austerity.

"The country remains unprepared and ill-equipped to meet the challenges of Brexit and secure Britain's future as a world-leading economy.

"After all the sacrifices people have made over the last six years, I fear today's statement has laid the foundations for more wasted years," he said.

"Only a Labour government will deliver the ambition and vision to rebuild and transform our economy so that no-one and no community is left behind."