Voters must never forget the betrayals of the toxic Tories, even as the party appeared to enjoy a momentary glimpse of hope in an Aberdeen by-election last week. Voters flirting with the Conservatives should remember how much they broke their manifesto promises between 2010 and 2024 - especially on immigration and Brexit - with the UK ending the Tory period in office with a higher tax burden, more debt, weaker productivity and lower living standards than at the start.
Immigration: A Broken Promise
The most egregious example of Tory failure must be immigration. Their 2010 manifesto said they would bring net migration back to "tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands", a goal repeated in the 2015 and 2017 manifestoes. Not only was migration in the hundreds of thousands during that period but the "Boriswave" took it into record-breaking territory. Worse, the Tories - despite promising the reverse - expanded work and study routes after Brexit, leading to huge increases in non-EU migration.
Economic Failures and Hypocrisy
Then there's the economy. While the Tories campaigned as a low-tax party throughout their time in power, by 2024 our tax burden had risen to its highest sustained level in decades. Sure, Covid had a big part in this, as did the Ukraine war, but Tory hypocrisy was at play the entire time. They failed. Miserably. The Tories entered office in 2010 promising fiscal discipline and deficit reduction. While they did reduce the annual deficit during the 2010s, public debt ended much higher, while productivity flatlined and growth was weak. Meanwhile, wages stagnated, house prices ran away from wages, and we ended up with a cost-of-living crisis.
IR35 Reforms and U-Turns
Perhaps the worse of it was the IR35 rules for contractors. Despite touting themselves as the party of enterprise and small business, the Tories extended IR35 reforms to the private sector in 2021 - pushing contractors into employment-like taxation without employment rights - and while the government briefly announced plans to repeal these so-called reforms in 2022, there was yet another U-turn, denting yet again the Tory image for supporting entrepreneurs.
Badenoch's Role and U-Turns
It is worth looking closely meanwhile at leader Kemi Badenoch's role in all this. She cannot, after all, wash her hands of the entire affair. She was, don't forget, a Tory minister in this period. While that alone doesn't condemn her, unlike Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman she never recognised Tory failures enough to fess up and jump ship to Reform. And lest we forget her U-turns, back in 2022 Badenoch indicated support for the UK's 2050 net zero target. Shortly after, she suggested the target might need to be delayed, then after becoming leader said it was effectively impossible without severe economic costs, abandoning a target which had been adopted by her old government and included in her party's 2024 manifesto. Then as Tory Business Secretary, Badenoch was associated with one of the Sunak government's most significant climbdowns. The government had proposed to automatically scrap thousands of retained EU laws, but Badenoch later announced only a much smaller number would be removed. She is guilty by association.
Comparison with Nigel Farage
Compare and contrast all this with the consistency of Nigel Farage, who has remained steadfast in his views on Europe, immigration, law and order, and the economy. By contrast, on immigration and the economy - as well as crime, where policing and court budget cuts made Britain a much more dangerous place - the Tories were an unmitigated catastrophe. How else could Sir Keir Starmer - a man being booted from office less than 2 years after entering it - have won such a landslide? Don't today then give the toxic Tories the benefit of the doubt. They don't deserve it.
Conclusion: No Amnesia for Tory Failures
The Conservatives are not now in competition with Reform. There is no competition. Their time in office sucked and they failed badly. Their hypocrisy and failures cannot be brushed aside. Don't let's have amnesia about the Conservatives and their car crash of a government.
