:Zia Yusuf says the Government’s handling of the economy is ‘disastrous’

 The figures released today by the ONS mark the third straight month without economic expansion

Zia Yusuf has launched a scathing attack on Labour’s handling of the economy after the latest figures confirmed GDP is shrinking.

Speaking to GB News, Reform UK’s policy chief described the Cabinet as a “bunch of incompetents” and claimed their handling of Britain’s economy has been “disastrous”.

In figures confirmed by the ONS this morning, Britain’s economy contracted by 0.1 per cent during October, extending a troubling pattern of stagnation that has persisted since June.

This marks the third straight month without expansion, following September’s identical 0.1 per cent decline and flat performance in August.

Delivering his verdict on the ONS figures, Mr Yusuf told GB News: “Well, it’s been framed as a surprise, but it really isn’t a surprise if you observe how this Labour Government has been running the economy.

“They are a bunch of incompetents who in the entire cabinet, no one has any experience of creating value in the economy, growing an economy, and making decisions in the private sector.”

He added: “They’re basically continuing what the Tories did for 14 years – endless deficits, lots of borrowing, debt going up, endless increases in the size of the state and state spending, and then a big deficit, a ‘black hole’.

“How do you fund that black hole? You raise taxes on the people watching this program, the contributors and the grafters who are then incentivised to do it.”

Zia Yusuf has branded Labour a ‘bunch of incompetents’ as the UK’s economy shrank again

Highlighting the “instability” Britain’s economy is facing despite the seemingly small decline, Mr Yusuf explained: “Now, to compound matters, we’ve also had a continuation of instability.

“If you look in the detail of that 0.1 per cent, which might sound abstract and boring, the first point I would make is that we only had growth in the economy in one of the last seven months in this country.

“The population explosion continues, it’s still hundreds of thousands in terms of net immigration, which means GDP per capita, which we think is the only stat that matters from a GDP perspective, how well off each person in the country is getting, well, actually, they continue to get poorer.”

Criticising Labour’s “political instability”, he added: “There’s been huge political instability. Most people in the business world think Rachel Reeves has already delivered her last Budget.

“Obviously, the Tories had three Chancellors in I think it was three and a half months, six Prime Ministers in eight years, but there’s even more instability now, or just as much, at least with Keir Starmer.

“And what that means is, if you’re an international capital allocator or even a business here in the UK, you’re going to hold back on making really important long cycle investment decisions, so that means those jobs don’t get created.”

Suggesting the “one way” to escape Labour’s fiscal “doom loop”, Mr Yusuf told GB News: “The final point I want to make is that Rachel Reeves appears to be absolutely flabbergasted that she has made employing people more expensive by increasing the National Insurance contributions of an employer by two per cent and making it more risky by bringing in what we term the unemployment rates bill, and seems to be shocked that businesses are going to employ fewer people.

“We have unemployment in this country at multi-year highs, youth unemployment growing at the fastest rate in the G7, so I’m sorry, the whole thing is a disaster.

Mr Yusuf told GB News that Labour’s handling of the economy is a ‘disaster’

“The only way we get out of this doom loop is to do the opposite of what’s been happening, reduce state spending and allow contributors, people like the ones watching this programme, people who go to work to keep more of their wages.”

Asked by host Miriam Cates what Reform would do differently, Mr Yusuf responded: “Here’s what we would do, number one, we’d have a total legislative reset.

“At the moment, you have a situation in this country where he or she who can injunct a process, put a spanner in the works gets to stop the whole production line for anything, whether that’s a nuclear power plant and somebody who’s concerned about fish and wants to spend a quarter of a million pound per fish on that project, whether it’s home building, it’s the same story.

“Number two, we need to change how these quangos work. We cannot have situations where people at Defra, unaccountable to the electorate, because they are quasi autonomous, they basically are autonomous, totally unaccountable to ministers and the people who voters put into office to make these decisions, being able to stop these things from happening.

“So, yes, of course we want to protect the environment, but that is ultimately up to ministers and politicians to make those decisions.