The meteorological conditions on the day the news broke that Boris Johnson was to become the UK’s next prime minister were uncannily apt to the occasion. The cloudless blue sky with temperatures soaring into the 30s – a rare occurrence in Britain – transpired into a violent thunderstorm, with dramatic bolts of lightning, the deafening roll of thunder and sheets of rain assailing the country, north, south, east and west.
Broken Britain had met its breaker.
Just when the country’s large segment of anti-‘BoJo’, pro-Europeans thought Brexit-era Britain couldn’t get any worse, the nation joined the trans-Atlantic club of egoistical buffoons running the ship. In archetypal, grassroots Tory fashion, it will be Britain’s poorest that will bear the brunt of Johnson’s rich-prioritising policies and uncompromising audacity to take the country out of the EU without a deal.
Theresa May’s half-hearted pledge at the 2018 Conservative conference to end austerity – an economic policy that means by 2021-22 the net incomes of the poorest fifth of households would have been reduced by around a tenth, while making little or no difference to the incomes of the richest fifth – is gravely endangered under Johnson’s leadership.
What almost certainly influenced the richer, grassroots members of the Conservative party’s leadership vote was Johnson’s promise to cut taxes for millions of high earners. During the Tory leadership campaign, the former foreign secretary said he would raise the 40 percent higher tax threshold from £50,000 to £80,000 if he became PM.
The tax cuts would affect around 3 million higher earners.
Using his column in the Telegraph to make his case for the cuts, Johnson wrote: “We should be raising thresholds of income tax – so that we help the huge numbers that have been captured in the higher rate by fiscal drag.”
Johnson said the move, which would cost the UK economy around £9.6 billion a year, would be partly paid for from savings in Brexit no-deal preparations – a tad optimistic given that that a no-deal Brexit could end up costing the government’s budget as much as £30 million a year, potentially pushing the country into recession.
Despite the UK already having one of the lowest rates of corporation tax among other developed economies, Johnson also argued that Britain should be cutting business taxes. There are, however, fundamental flaws in the new prime minister’s tax cuts, as critiqued by economists and by a raft of political commentators.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the proposal was expensive and potentially incompatible with the Tories’ promise to end the austerity that has been crippling the country’s most vulnerable citizens since it was introduced by David Cameron in 2010. As Tom Waters, a research economist at the IFS, told the Guardian: “It is not clear that spending such sums on tax cuts is compatible with both ending austerity in public spending and prudent management of public finances.”
Even the former chancellor, Philip Hammond, who, like May, claimed the end of austerity was in sight but did little to stamp out the ongoing vicious cuts, warned Tory leadership contenders not to adopt “reckless” promises like tax cuts in order to appeal to grassroots Tory members.
Hammond resigned from government following Johnson’s appointment as new Tory leader. Ignoring Hammond’s warnings, Johnson pledged potentially economy-crippling tax cuts that will solely benefit the rich, and, by doing so, secured the keys to Number 10.
Wealthy pensioners also stand to gain from Johnson’s tax cut pledge, as pensioners are exempt from paying national insurance, something Johnson plans to increase for the workers who benefit from the income tax cut.
The IFS has warned such a move would heighten generational inequality, as those over the age of 65 would benefit from a tax cut that’s approximately 60 percent greater than the tax cut administered to people under 65.
Given that 40 percent of Tory party members are above the age of 66 and the majority of the party are above 55 – making Tory members older than the average membership of any other party in Britain – it stands to reason why such a large chunk of members were keen to vote for Johnson. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, put the damage Johnson’s tax cuts would do to Britain into perspective.
“Exactly as predicted, the Tory leadership race is degenerating into a race to the bottom in tax cuts. When there are 4.5 million children in poverty, 1 million elderly in severe poverty, the schools’ budgets and our police service stretched to breaking point, this [is] the Tory priority,” said McDonnell.
Potentially even more damaging than reducing the tax paid by the nation’s wealthiest is the new prime minister’s ruthless and reckless attitude towards taking Britain out of the EU without a deal. Standing on the steps of Downing Street, Johnson announced there would be “no ifs or buts,” as Britain will leave the EU in 99 days’ time.
Cementing his commitment to leave the EU with or without a deal, no sooner was he given the keys to Number 10 than Johnson ripped Theresa May’s former cabinet apart, sacking an onslaught of senior ministers and declaring war on “the doubtsters, the doomsters, the gloomsters.”
What Ruth George, Labour MP for the High Peak, described as the “most right-wing cabinet ever put together,” Johnson announced a government of hardcore Brexiteers, including Dominic Raab, Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Concerns are escalating about the impact the wilful ignorance to stampeding Britain towards a no-deal Brexit will have on the country. If a no deal goes ahead on October 31, the price of food is estimated to rise by 10 percent, businesses will be faced with a stocks’ shortage jeopardising working hours for employees and jobs, and the prospect of a recession will loom closer.
Such frightening projections were made by Sir Mark Sedwill, the UK’s most senior civil servant, and are supported by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Office for Budget Responsibility and a Commons committee report, among others.
While ‘Bojo’ and his middle aged, pro-Brexit, tax cut-loving fraternity of Tory followers might not really notice a 10 percent rise in food prices – and certainly won’t run the risk of losing their jobs in a factory that relies on British/EU trade – it will be the poorest in broken Britain that are shattered the hardest.
