Suppose the current economic policy does not change. In that case, the UK is in danger of being overtaken by Poland in terms of GDP per capita by 2030, the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer said.
Starmer, who outlined his future government’s five priorities for the UK last week, went into more detail on the first one – ensuring the UK sustains the highest economic growth of the G7 in a speech in the City of London.
The UK is on a "trajectory that will soon see Britain overtaken by Poland", says opposition leader @Keir_Starmer.
He points to World Bank data indicating that, on current trajectories, Poland's GDP per capita will overtake the UK's by 2030 https://t.co/PFwvBa74Jn
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 27, 2023
Referring to the World Bank data, he pointed out that in 2010-21, the average annual economic growth of Great Britain amounted to 0.5 percent, while Poland’s was 3.6 percent, while the value of GDP per capita in 2021 stood at USD 44,979 in the UK and USD 34,915 in Poland respectively. According to the Labour Party, if the growth rate in both countries continues, by 2030 the UK will be overtaken by Poland, and by 2040 – by Hungary and Romania.
Starmer said the Conservative Party, which had been in power for 13 years, had set Britain on a path of slow decline.
Labour leader Keir Starmer will today ask British voters to judge him on whether they “feel better off after five years of a Labour government” as he tries to flesh out the opposition party’s economic thinking ahead of the next election.https://t.co/GRGqqHl8sY
— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) February 27, 2023
“The British are falling behind while our European neighbors are getting richer, both in the East and countries like France and Germany. I’m not comfortable with that; I’m not comfortable with the trajectory where the UK will soon be overtaken by Poland nor am I ready to accept what the consequences of this failure would mean,” the Labor leader said.
“I don’t want the UK where young people in our big cities and towns have no choice but to leave. A brain drain, not just to London or Edinburgh, but to Lyon, Munich, and Warsaw – that’s not the future I want.”
For many months, the Labour Party has maintained a stable, 20 percentage points advantage over the Conservatives and there are few indications that the situation could be reversed before the next elections.