Dear Jack,

The Tories have been in government for 12 years. That’s 12 years of broken promises.

It was all just Tory talk. Families, communities and businesses around the country have been devastated. Trust in government has been destroyed. And for good reason. Here are just 12 of many promises the Tories have broken. One for each year of office. 

1. David Cameron promised to keep net migration numbers to “tens of thousands.” “No ifs. No but’s.” Theresa May set an annual limit of 100,000. Boris Johnson guaranteed to control our borders.  

How’s it working out? In 2022 net migration numbers reached a record high of 504,000. Another record was broken with 45,000 illegal migrants crossing the channel. Most were smuggled over by criminal gangs. 

Nearly four cities the size of Birmingham have been added to the population since 2010. That’s millions of extra GP registrations. Record NHS waiting lists. And enormous pressure on housing and school places. 

2. The Tory record on tax is no better. In 2019 they pledged not to raise any form of tax for five years. Instead, they’ve raised nearly all of them, making millions of people poorer. Jeremy Hunt’s austerity budget wiped out a decade of income growth. Millions have been dragged into higher taxes by freezing or reducing thresholds. Corporation tax has gone up for the first time in 50 years. And our tax burden is set to rise to 37.5% of GDP. The highest level since WW2. 

3. They promised a “stronger more dynamic economy.” But after tax hikes, botched trade deals, shameful levels of waste, disastrous lockdown policies and the self-harm of Net Zero, our economy is barely growing at all. With Britain’s resources and talent, we should be the leading western economy. 

4. They promised to control the national debt. Remember that 2010 election poster? A picture of Gordon Brown saying, “I doubled the national debt. Let me do it again.”  In fact the Tories did it again. They more than doubled the debt from £1 trillion in 2010, to nearly £2.5 trillion today.

5. David Cameron promised a “bonfire of the quangos.” He said they were “one of the main reasons so many people feel that nothing ever changes.” Johnson, Truss and Sunak agreed. In 2010 the cost of quangos was £90 billion. In 2021 was a staggering £265 billion. Now they want another quango to "restore trust" in our institutions and…democracy.” You couldn’t make it up!

6. But with all that spending, surely they’re building those 40 new hospitals they promised? Only 5 have been started. Even worse, the number of hospital beds has fallen from 184,000 in 2010 to around 158,000 today. This is one of the lowest number of beds per capita in the developed world. 

7. The Tories promised full control of our fishing waters after Brexit. Instead, we saw a complete and utter sell-out of our fishing fleet. The EU still have access to our waters. Our fishermen are way short of their rightful quotas and they still have to dump good fish back into the sea.  

8. The government promised safe streets and neighbourhoods; To “take violent criminals off the streets and protect us.” Instead crime is at record highs including knife crime and police are solving the lowest number of crimes ever. The bobby on the beat is extinct. Or maybe they are just too busy virtue signalling on twitter. 

9. For nearly 10 years the Tories have promised to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and replace it with a British Bill of Rights. But unbelievably our laws are still being overruled by biased, unaccountable, poorly qualified European judges. 

10. The Tories also promised to “champion freedom of expression and tolerance.” But their online safety bill wanted to put people in prison for hurting others’ feelings. Even worse, across the UK the Tories have stood and watched while woke, cancel culture destroys freedom of speech in public life.

WATCH OUR VIDEO ABOUT TORY TALK

11. The 2019 Tory manifesto promised to support entrepreneurs and the self-employed. Yet this sector has been crushed by regulations and new tax rules. Self-employed numbers are down by 20%. 

12. And finally, Brexit. We were promised full control of our borders, our laws and our money. After more than 6 years of deliberate delays, obstructions and reversals, Brexit has been betrayed.

There have been so many broken promises over the years. It’s difficult to find a promise they kept. 

Our country deserves so much better. We are a nation of lions led by donkeys. But we don’t have to put up with Tory talk. Reform UK is now the 3rd largest party in the polls. We have nearly 600 candidates ready for a general election. We are recruiting hundreds of new members every day. The Tories are running scared.

I can’t wait to start our 2023 campaign, and I look forward to meeting each and every one of you as we take our message to doorsteps around the country. In the meantime I want to thank you, my fellow Reformers, for all your hard work and support. We have a massive opportunity to reform the way our great country is run. To serve the people not the elite. To restore trust in politics. And to make Britain Great. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Richard Tice