All the Conservative Manifesto Promises Boris Johnson has Broken

All the Conservative Manifesto Promises Boris Johnson has Broken

The Prime Minister’s broken promise not to raise National Insurance is the latest in a growing list of ripped up pledges from his 2019 manifesto, reports Adam Bienkov

Boris Johnson today broke his election manifesto pledge not to raise National Insurance, in the latest of a growing list of promises he has ripped up since 2019.

The rise will mean a typical taxpayer earning £27,000 will pay an extra £200 a year in tax.

Here are all the pledges the Prime Minister has so far broken from his last manifesto.

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‘We Will Not Raise… National Insurance’

The Prime Minister’s pledge not to raise income tax, VAT or National Insurance was a central pledge in the Conservative Party’s 2019 General Election campaign.

He said on the campaign trail that the pledge would mean “low tax for people… working people” and insisted it would remain in place for five years.

This week he ripped that up, raising National Insurance by 1.6 points – the equivalent of a 10% rise overall.

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‘We Will Keep the Triple Lock.. and Other Pensioner Benefits’

Boris Johnson also promised to continue to raise the state pension by either CPI inflation, wage growth or 2.5% – whichever was highest.

Last year, the Prime Minister broke this pledge, meaning that the triple lock will not apply for this year.

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‘No One Should have to Sell their Home to Pay for Care’

The Conservative manifesto also promised to solve the UK’s social care crisis, pledging that in future no individual would be forced to sell their home in order to pay for their care.

The Prime Minister said that he would “end the injustice” of the elderly being forced to sell up.

However, Johnson last year watered down this pledge, with ministers admitting that some people still would have to do so.

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‘We Will Build Northern Powerhouse Rail Between Leeds and Manchester’

In 2019, Boris Johnson committed to building a new high speed connection between Leeds and Manchester, saying: “I am going to deliver on my commitment to that vision with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.”

The promise was central to the Prime Minister’s claims to be ‘levelling up’ the country.

However, last year he broke this pledge, with local leaders labelling it a “great Northern rail betrayal”.

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‘Building 40 New Hospitals Across the Country’

One of Johnson’s most-repeated pledges has been his promise to build “40 new hospitals” across the country. However, the pledge, which was contained within the Conservatives’ manifesto, is not quite what it seemed.

In reality, the Government has no intention of building 40 new hospitals before the next election. As ministers have since admitted, the plan only involves rebuilding some existing hospitals, while putting in place other plans to build new ones over the coming decades.

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‘We Will Keep Our Existing Energy Cap and Introduce New Measures to Lower Bills’

Another key pledge broken from the 2019 manifesto was the Conservatives’ promise to keep the energy price cap and “lower bills”.

As almost everyone reading this will have realised in the past week, both of those pledges have now been broken.

For around 18 million households on standard tariffs, bills have now risen by an average of around £700 with those on pre-payment meters paying even more.

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‘We Will Proudly Maintain Our Commitment to Spend 0.7% of GNI on Development’

Johnson’s manifesto also contained the promise to maintain the pledge to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid.

Johnson ripped up this promise last year, cutting it to just 0.5% and depriving some of the poorest nations of the world of billions of pounds in aid.

Reacting to the decision at the time, the campaign group Global Justice Now said that “every MP who has voted to sever the UK’s 0.7% commitment should know that blood is on their hands”.

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‘We Will [Host] the UK Government’s First Ever International LGBT Conference’

Boris Johnson this week caused outrage after performing a double U-turn on his pledge to ban what he said was the “abhorrent” practice of gay conversion therapy.

However, the decision to exclude trans people from the reinstated ban has infuriated LGBT organisations, almost all of which pulled out of the Government’s planned upcoming international LGBT conference.

As a result, Equalities Minister Liz Truss this week cancelled the conference, thereby breaking the Conservatives’ 2019 general election pledge to hold one.