The main promises of the candidates in the British elections

The Conservatives promise to lower taxes and the Labour Party promises to increase specific rates for certain groups, without affecting the poor. workers, according to the programs for the legislative elections of July 4 in the United Kingdom.

Both parties agree on a desire to reduce immigration and defend budgetary orthodoxy. These are the main points of the programmes of the two major British parties ahead of an election in which Labour is the favourite, and if it wins, it will put an end to fourteen years of Conservative government.

Taxes

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservative Party wants to cut taxes, saying the billions of pounds a year lost to public coffers will be offset by cutting welfare and cracking down on tax avoidance.

Prime Minister candidate Keir Starmer’s Labour Party plans tax increases for certain taxpayers, including private schools and oil companies, but promises not to raise taxes on workers.

Immigration

Sunak announced his intention to halve immigration and send planes to Rwanda in July to deport people who arrived illegally. Despite Brexit, immigration hit a record high in 2022, mainly of people from outside the European Union, before falling slightly in 2023.

Starmer also promised to reduce immigration, without giving figures, pledging to scrap the Conservative plan to charter planes to Rwanda with illegal immigrants.

Energy and environment

Both the Conservatives and Labour have pledged to boost renewable energy production capacity, particularly offshore wind. But the Conservatives also want to grant new hydrocarbon drilling permits in the North Sea every year, while Labour says it will not issue any additional permits.

Labour wants to create GB Energy, a public investment company for clean energy, and to set a ban on new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 (something Sunak had planned for 2035).

Health

To turn around the troubled NHS, the Conservatives are promising to boost staff numbers by hiring 92,000 extra nurses and 28,000 doctors. Labour, meanwhile, wants to cut the NHS’s endless waiting lists by hiring 40,000 extra consultations each week or even hire 8,500 mental health workers.

Youth

Both Labour and the Conservatives want to hire more teachers. Labour is talking about creating 3,000 nurseries, while the Conservatives want to subsidise 30 hours a week of childcare for children from the age of 9 months, when both partners are working.

The Conservatives plan to reinstate compulsory national service for 18-year-olds (military or civic), while Labour wants to give the right to vote to 16-year-olds (compared to the current 18).

Reform UK

The far-right party Reform UK, of Eurosceptic Nigel Farage, could spring a surprise and overtake the Conservatives in second place in percentage of votes, although not in seats, in an election in which Labour are the favourites.

Reform UK includes halting immigration in its election programme “that is not essential”the UK’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), abandoning the carbon neutrality target and speeding up the allocation of oil and gas licences in the North Sea.