As hundreds of Conservatives lost their seats across the country last Thursday, the idea that the Conservatives “failed to honour the trust that people had placed in them” was claimed by MPs from Jacob Rees-Mogg to Penny Mordaunt as the reason for their defeat.
With polling finding that a majority of voters from all parties no longer believe any manifesto pledges, clearly something has gone wrong. Looking back, how many 2019 Manifesto Pledges did the Conservatives give up on?
“We’ve introduced and consistently raised the National Living Wage – and will raise it still further.”
– Achieved
The UK National Living Wage has increased every year, outpacing inflation in all but one. As of April 2024, the UK has the third-highest hourly minimum wage in the world in nominal terms. According to the Government’s Low Pay Commission, despite a real-term decline in 2022, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has increased overall during this period.
“Get Brexit Done”
– Achieved
Referred to as the ‘Brexit Election,’ the fulfilment of this pledge was central to their mandate in 2019. While in some sense being the most clear-cut manifesto success, with the UK entering the transition period on the 31st of January exactly as promised, Reform’s claim that the Conservatives “betrayed” Brexit clearly did significant electoral damage.
“Debt will be lower at the end of the Parliament”
– Failed
The unprecedented crisis of Covid-19 has forced the Government to massively increase borrowing, with high interest rates making debt levels increasingly unsustainable. This is far from unique to this government; almost all countries saw a dramatic increase in public debt. Not only was debt higher at the end of the Parliament than at the beginning of 2019, but even by the final quarter of 2023, the UK fiscal deficit remained triple that of pre-pandemic levels.
“Net Zero by 2050”
– Mostly Failed
In line with the Climate Change Act of 2008, the 2019 manifesto promised to take steps to achieve the UK’s longstanding targets to net zero by 2050. While 2050 is still a while away, progress on this pledge has been mixed. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), the Government’s independent advisor on climate policy, described the Government as having a “lack of urgency” in the rollout of renewable technology, describing its confidence in the achievement as having “markedly declined from last year” in its 2023 parliamentary report. In 2022, the High Court ruled that the Government’s Net Zero plan had not established how specific emission reduction goals would be achieved. In May of this year, the redrafted plan was struck down again for the same reason.
“50,000 more nurses”
– Achieved
NHS statistics in November of 2023 found this target to have been achieved. However, while this manifesto pledge has been achieved, few would argue that nursing has been an area of success for government policy. Analysis by the Royal College of Nursing found that demand for nurses has increased at a far greater rate than supply.
“We will not raise the rate of Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance”
– Mostly Failed
True to its pledge, the Government has not increased VAT or Income Tax. However, regarding National Insurance, this pledge was unambiguously broken in 2021 under then Chancellor Rishi Sunak. However, upon his selection as Prime Minister, Sunak has maintained the Truss-era NIC cuts, further cutting NIC to 8%, a 4% decrease from the 2019 rate. However, even considering nominal cuts, the freezing of tax bands means that personal taxes are still rising in real terms according to analysis by the IFS.
“Bring full fibre and gigabit-capable broadband to every home and business”
– Failed
Likely created in response to Labour’s promise of free broadband, this pledge likely blunted the appeal of this popular policy. The Conservative pledge to roll out gigabit-capable broadband to every household in the country as part of their Levelling Up Scheme was rolled back significantly with the 2022 Levelling Up whitepaper, which now sets the target to 85% by 2025, and total coverage by 2030. Recent Ofcom data shows significant increases in coverage, with four in five households having gigabit coverage as of 2024. Full fibre is significantly lower, at 62%.
Reduce Net Migration “to less than 100,000”
– Failed
While initially on track, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the emigration of EU nationals causing net migration in the UK to fall to 34,000 in 2020, ONS figures recorded a net migration rate of 685,000 in 2023. Not only is this above the manifesto pledge, but it would have been a record if it were not for the fact that the rate of the previous year was 79,000 higher. More than any other single policy, failure to meet this objective has created a sense of betrayal among the Conservative base.
“We will add 10,000 more prison places”
– Mostly Failed
The Government has said that 5,202 additional prison places have been constructed as of 5 June 2023. According to the 2023 Parliamentary report on prison estate, this number will reach 8,200 by the end of May 2025. These figures, however, include prisons constructed since the first 10,000 prison space target back in 2016. The lack of prison capacity forced the creation of an early prisoner release scheme last month, an unpopular policy which likely contributed to polls putting Labour ahead on law and order.
“300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s”
– Failed
When then Housing Secretary Michael Gove made the 300,000 pledge ‘advisory’ rather than ‘mandatory’ in 2022, what limited pressure had been exerted on councils dissipated. The most recent ONS figures show that 2023 saw an 18% decrease in the number of homes built from 2019. Labour’s pledge to push hard for housing expansion has been a strong part of its electoral strategy
Final thoughts
It would be unfair to view some failed pledges without acknowledging the massively distortionary effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK has been far from unique in breaking pre-pandemic promises. Despite this, plenty of pandemic governments were able to pull off re-election. In fact, analysis by the Institute for Government in 2021 found that the Conservatives had already achieved half of their manifesto pledges. In comparison, in late 2019, the IFG found that over 60% of pledges had failed.
Despite this, few in the opposition brought up the idea that Boris Johnson had failed in the manifesto pledges of his predecessor. Even though both 2019 and 2024 saw a new leader run for office, one was able to distance themselves from their predecessor’s failures and the other was not.
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This article was written by Chamber’s feature write Alex Connor