From scrapping green energy measures to creating a version of Trump’s deportation force, the Tories have announced some bad policies
Things are going from bad to worse for the Tories. Not only are they in third in voting intention polls, they’ve also only drawn between 2,800 and 3,500 party members (around 1000 less than they anticipated last year) to their annual conference in Manchester this year. To rooms full of empty seats, they’ve made some bad policy announcements. Here are some of the worst contenders.
1. Scrapping green energy measures
Before their conference had even got underway, we learned that the Tories were launching their shocking plan to scrap the Climate Change Act. In her speech yesterday, shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said that the Conservatives would scrap carbon tax and wind subsidies to make people’s bills cheaper. “Where’s our flipping £300?” Coutinho said, in reference to Labour’s pledge to cut energy bills by £300 a year by 2030. Transitioning to renewable energy has upfront costs, but will deliver millions of pounds in savings over the longer-term.
The Tories claim cutting subsidies for wind farms and the carbon tax on electricity generation would reduce the average family’s energy bill by £165 a year. Compare that with homes with solar panels and battery systems, who save around £780 on their energy bills each year.
Responding to Coutinho’s announcement, Mike Childs, head of policy at Friends of the Earth, said: “The Conservatives’ promise of cheaper energy while opposing wind and solar is contradictory nonsense. Renewable energy is far cheaper than building more fossil fuel plants … They say they want to protect the environment, but increasing fossil fuel reliance only makes things worse.”
2. Introducing a Trump-style Ice deportation force
The world has looked on in sheer disbelief as masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Donald Trump’s America snatch people off streets in broad daylight or pull families from their apartments at night. Now, Kemi Badenoch wants to introduce the same policy in the UK.
She said the Tories would create their own removal force with a mandate to deport at least 150,000 people each year. Deutsche-Welle journalist Matthew Moore tweeted: “‘Modelled on Ice’ – British Conservatives drawing inspiration from an immigration crackdown so controversial that, checks notes, Germany’s far-right AfD has distanced itself from it.”
Another X user posted a video of a violent Ice attack on a car with a baby inside, with the caption: “Imagine bragging about bringing this to Britain”.
3. Jenrick goes ‘full Trump’ and wants to appoint judges himself
We already knew the Tories want to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights, scrap the Human Rights Act and leave the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, who has already come under fire today for his dog whistle claims he “didn’t see another white face” on a visit to a Birmingham neighbourhood, began his speech making a series of distasteful jokes suggesting justice secretary David Lammy isn’t intelligent.
He then went on to announce that the Tories would abolish immigration tribunals. Not only that, but they would give powers to the government to appoint judges. In his speech he railed against what he calls “activist judges” with links to open borders charities or who have spent their career defending migrants’ right to stay in the UK.
Jenrick said the lord chancellor (which he would likely become if the Tories gained power again) will appoint judges and “they will be instructed never to permit political activism of any political hue [for those who] don the wig ever again”. In the US, the government appoints federal judges, choosing people who align with their political opinions.
Mirror journalist Kevin Maguire wrote on X: “Jenrick’s gone full Trump, planning to appoint only judges who agree with him should [he] become Lord Chancellor/Justice Secretary.
“Tory justice would be no justice.”
4. People who don’t qualify for benefits could be returned home
If their other policies weren’t controversial enough, the Tories have come out with some new ideas on welfare reform. They want to limit social security to UK citizens to save £47 billion a year, and have said that if a migrant is denied benefits, they could be deported to their home countries…
The shadow chancellor Mel Stride said that if a migrant who applies for benefits doesn’t qualify, they’d have the ‘option’ to go home. “If they’ve come from other parts of the world, they would have an option to return to those other parts,” he said.
The Tories have also vowed to stop people with what they have called “low level mental health issues” such as anxiety and depression, from receiving long-term sickness benefits.
5. Tories vow to scrap business rates, but shadow minister didn’t know how much the policy would cost
The shadow chancellor used his conference speech to proclaim that the Tories will be “the party of fiscal responsibility”. He then went on to announce the Tories’ policy to scrap business rates for most pubs and shops on the high street. In an interview with Sky’s Sophy Ridge, shadow education minister Saqib Bhatti couldn’t say how much the business rate cuts would cost.
Bhatti said: “Well, you know I haven’t done work on this previously. It is a sizeable amount. I don’t know it off the top of my head actually.”
He indicated that the policy would be paid for through the Tories’ proposed £47 billion a year in welfare cuts.
Ridge said: “Isn’t it a bit of a problem, this is your headline announcement and you’re talking about being a party of fiscal discipline and you can’t tell me how much it’s going to cost.”
The policy is expected to cost £4 billion.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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