Newington's Chris White reviews the Tory manifesto and what it means for the future of Conservativsm. 

"There is no Mayism… there is good, solid Conservatism which puts the interests of the country and the interests of ordinary working people at the heart of everything we do in government."

The country may be about to re-elect another Conservative Government, but this manifesto launch starkly outlined the difference between Theresa May’s brand of Conservativism and that of her predecessor, David Cameron. Today marked a clean break from the Cameron years – gone are the tax lock, pension pledge, the end of Universal Free School Meals, an early elimination of the deficit and the ‘Big Society’.

Instead Mrs May is confronting vast swathes of policy and society which were left alone under David Cameron as he believed that they were too difficult to deal with. The pensions triple lock would become a double lock after 2020, meaning that the minimum 2.5% increase will no longer be guaranteed and will rise in line with inflation or wages, whichever is higher. There will be means testing for some benefits such as winter fuel payments, and wealthy pensioners will have to pay more for care, but no-one will have to sell property to pay for social care, although costs will be recouped after death up to a floor of £100,000. 

Yet these changes only scratch the surface, and whilst Mrs May explicitly rejected the idea of ‘Mayism’, she is quite literally redefining Conservativism. Not content with junking the liberal conservative tenets of her predecessor, she marks a clear departure from cornerstone Conservative principles held since the Thatcher years. A key section of the manifesto declares, “we do not believe in untrammelled free markets… [we believe] in the good that government can do.” What follows is the most interventionist set of Conservative policies since Stanley Baldwin, but Mrs May wants us to see it not in these terms, but as a manifesto that will achieve fairness for the “mainstream British public”.

Some of this we knew in advance, such as the much trailed energy price cap and protecting workers’ rights, but other policies are new: introducing a passenger ombudsman and reviewing rail ticketing to remove complexity, tough new powers for the pensions regulator, modernising the home buying process, cracking down on unfair practices in leasehold, making executive pay packages subject to annual votes by shareholders, and forcing listed companies to publish the ratio of executive pay to ‘broader UK workforce’ pay to name just a handful.

No doubt Mrs May sees this as pursuing a fairer, pragmatic, agenda, however the Prime Minister also sees an opportunity to capitalise on Labour’s weakness under Corbyn. The Conservatives are likely to win a swathe of seats in the North of England, and even Scotland, which have been lost to the party for nearly forty years. Once or twice every hundred years there is a chance to truly redefine the state of British politics, and Brexit, coupled with the reunification of the right and the collapse of UKIP, has provided that opportunity. The Prime Minister is clearly aware of this – the appearance of Conservative Cabinet Ministers campaigning in Bolsover, for example, shows how far her sights are set into Labour heartlands.  She has to show these new Conservative voters over the next five years that she, and the Tory party, can deliver for them.

However, can this ambitious domestic agenda be achieved in the face of the massive challenge posed by successfully negotiating Brexit? The manifesto sets out a series of policies that will need chunky legislation to deliver, yet the next Parliament will be taken up by significant legislative churn as European legislation is incorporated into British law, and then further legislation will be needed to amend it to reflect the UK’s new priorities.

Businesses, and indeed the free-market Conservative right wing in Parliament, will find some of these policies a bitter pill to swallow, and there will no doubt be some opposition in Parliament and in the sector. The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed some of the manifesto, but was clear that some proposals would “increase up-front costs, regulatory obligations and uncertainty for businesses.” If, as anticipated, the Conservatives win the election on 8 June with a decent majority, businesses will not only have to be prepared to demonstrate that they are acting in the interests of the consumer, but also carefully consider the detail of proposed legislation in their markets, and how best to respond to these threats.