CORBYN CHAOS: Emily Thornberry doesn't appear to know Labour policies in radio car crash
LABOUR chaos appears to be deepening as Jeremy Corbyn’s own ministers don’t appear to know what the party’s policies are after Theresa May called for a General Election .
Emily Thornberry admits she doesn't know Labour's policies
Emily Thornberry was caught out on Radio 4’s Today Programme ahead of the party leader’s speech on Thursday as she was grilled over Labour’s tax policy.
The hammering came after shadow chancellor John McDonnell suggested “rich people” who earn more than £70,000 should be slapped with higher tax rates.
Quizzed on the Labour Party proposal, Ms Thornberry deflected the question and referred the BBC host back to the party manifesto.
She said: “Well, I think that you need to do, is you need to look at our manifesto. Obviously, it’s only been 24 hours or so since the election was called.”
And as the shadow foreign secretary was pushed on who would be affected by a tax crackdown, she replid: “The question is, we’ll need to go into the details as to what our changes to taxation will be.
“And I’m not really in the position to be able to go into those details today, but I’m happy to come back once our manifesto has been published.
“I think there are many people on 70,000 who may well feel their circumstances are such that they are not rich and I understand that but they are certainly on a higher income than those on 26,000."
Pushing the issue, the radio host insisted Mr McDonnell had made it clear the Labour Party would take on the “wealth extractors”.
John McDonnell avoids questions on Labour’s stance on Brexit
I’m not really in the position to be able to go into those details today
And as the Radio 4 presenter asked how Mr Corbyn’s team intended to do that, Ms Thornberry dodged the question.
She said: “Again you’re trying to draw me into what’s going to be in the manifesto.”
Speaking on Wednesday, the shadow chancellor said: “We will be looking to see how we ensure a fair taxation system and, to be frank, what we’ll be doing is we’ll be looking to the corporations and the rich to pay their share.
“You look at what’s happening in this country at the moment and you see that the burden in terms of the tax take has fallen on middle and low earners … below the higher tax bands.”
Speaking to Radio 4, he added: “We believe we are talking about the rich, will be above 70,000 to 80,000 a year, and that’s roughly defined as what people feel is an earning, whereby people feel they can pay more.”
During the programme, he was also roasted for evading questions on Labour’s Brexit stance.
Challenged on whether Labour wanted the UK to stay inside the single market, he said: “We’ll want to negotiate tariff-free access to the single market, that’s been one of our priorities, to protect jobs and the economy overall.
“We believe we can negotiate with our European partners a managed and fair immigration system from the EU which takes into account the needs of our economy.
“And all the discussions we’ve had with our socialist and democratic party colleagues across Europe have given us an indication that they’re looking for a constructive relationship based upon mutual interests.”