Conservative candidates are making increasingly wild tax cut pledges, which can only be paid for by drastically cutting public services, reports Adam Bienkov

Sign up for our weekly Behind the Headlines email and get a free copy of Byline Times posted to you

The candidates to become the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister are currently competing with each other to offer the most unaffordable slate of tax cuts.

Among them is the Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, who this morning indicated that he plans to slash corporation tax, business rates and income tax and pay for it by slashing the size of the state.

Asked by Sky News what public services he would cut to pay for these pledges, he said that he would like to cut every government department by 20%. 

This aligns with Zahawi’s previous calls for the party to focus on “rolling back the state” in order to pay for tax cuts. 

However, cuts on the scale he appeared to back this morning would be absolutely ruinous and cause the near-total destruction of many vital public services. 

His allies later suggested that he had only intended to refer to staff cuts at departments, rather than overall budgets.

However, such are the demands for a low tax, high austerity agenda among the Conservative selectorate, that all of the candidates are increasingly following each other down this same destructive road.

And the net result is that whoever succeeds Boris Johnson will be under huge pressure to impose ever more drastic cuts on public services.

Conservative Leadership Hopefuls have Raked in £300,000 Over Last Year

Sascha Lavin

And any further cuts to the size of the public sector will only take further money out of an already struggling economy. As the economist Richard Murphy has written: “Get rid of these public servants and not only do we lose what they add to the economy, we also lose what they spend as well. They won’t be spending much when they’re unemployed. Nor will most find jobs as well paid.”

Yet such is the fervour for tax cuts, that such considerations are falling by the wayside.

As a result, the Conservative Party is now shifting significantly to the right of the current Prime Minister on economics. Whatever his many faults, Johnson did seek to distinguish himself from his predecessors by claiming that he was bringing an end to austerity.

As ever with Johnson, the reality of his record did not fully align with his rhetoric. Yet the logical conclusion of the agenda now being pushed by almost all the Conservative leadership candidates is not just a return of the sort of austerity seen in the Cameron era, but the supercharging of it.

Interestingly, the one candidate to so far put up any kind of resistance to this, is the current frontrunner Rishi Sunak, who has said that further tax cuts can only come once the threat of inflation has been tackled.

Yet such is the pressure that he is now coming under from Conservative MPs and party members, that even he is likely to be forced to follow his colleagues down a similarly destructive path.

OUR JOURNALISM RELIES ON YOU

Byline Times is funded by its subscribers. Receive our monthly print edition and help to support fearless, independent journalism.

New to Byline Times? Find out more about us

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PRINT EDITION

A new type of newspaper – independent, fearless, outside the system. Fund a better media.

Don’t miss a story! Sign up to our newsletter (and get a free edition posted to you)

Our leading investigations include: empire & the culture warBrexit, crony contractsRussian interferencethe Coronavirus pandemicdemocracy in danger, and the crisis in British journalism. We also introduce new voices of colour in Our Lives Matter.

More stories filed under Boris Johnson’s Hard Brexit

UK’s Brexit Trade Deal with Malaysia has Potential to Flood Market with Dirty Palm Oil

, 31 March 2023
In a weakened position due to Brexit, the UK has accepted Malaysia’s demands to reduce import tariffs on palm oil from the current 12% to 0%

Iraq and Brexit: A Common Thread of Hubris

, 23 March 2023
Both events were driven more by ideological conviction – than rational analysis – and against the advice of most experts, writes former diplomat Alexandra Hall Hall

Labour has ‘More Seats to Gain by Rejecting Brexit than it would Lose in Red Wall’, New Poll Suggests

, 22 March 2023
Keir Starmer could win an increased majority by turning against Brexit – but party officials are still rejecting any notion of rejoining the EU

More stories filed under Argument

What is the Future for British Steel?

, 31 March 2023
Pressures of decarbonisation and evolving international markets could lead to a significant slump in its competitiveness, writes Thomas Perrett

Stress Test: Will Sunak and Hunt's Brexit Banking Reforms Weather the Current Financial Turmoil?

, 30 March 2023
In the light of banking failures, Anthony Yates looks at how a plan for central bank digital currencies to protect depositors overlooks the key function of the financial sector - credit
crop man counting dollar banknotes

‘The Strangers’ Case? The Government’s Approach to Human Dignity, Asylum Seekers and a Lesson from Shakespeare’

, 30 March 2023
We must all examine our values and actions in relation to vulnerable populations, writes Iain Overton

More from the Byline Family