𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

If anything proves the sheer duplicity of the Tories, it was something which happened in the past few days. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch – on the eve of her party’s conference –announced a Conservative government would bring back tax-free shopping for tourists from outside the EU, bringing in billions in revenue.

Just one problem. It was the Tories who scrapped the VAT Retail Export Scheme back in 2021, a scheme which had allowed overseas visitors to get a VAT refund on items they bought in Britain. At the time, Badenoch was a Treasury minister and defended the scrapping, saying the scheme was “a costly relief which does not benefit the whole of GB equally”.

Except now the Tories decide they were wrong. Again. It seems the scheme does bring in more money and creates more jobs by attracting more tourists. If this doesn’t exemplify everything wrong with the modern Conservatives, I don’t know what does. The Tories had 14 years in power. A decade and a half to cut immigration, reform noxious IR35 rules for contractors and get us out of the ECHR.

What did we get? The start of the small boats crisis, the ‘Boriswave’ of unprecedented open-door immigration, a botched Brexit, the retention of those IR35 rules and – cherry on the cake – we’re still stuck in the ECHR.

The Tories failed to build enough schools, hospitals or prisons. Crime spiralled, as did the national debt. And we may as well not have bothered having a border at all.

Voters of Britain, ask yourself this: if the Tories promised so much and delivered so little in 14 years, why would things be different now? The personnel remains largely the same, as does the party machinery and infrastructure. Two years is nowhere near long enough for the Tories to have learned their lessons.

Heck, ten years might not be enough. Record debt, record immigration, low productivity, a crumbling NHS and a dramatic jump in street crime. That was the Tory legacy. Now the Tories want you to believe they can fix the very problems they created.

Lessons can be learned, for sure. But not in two years. Frankly, the UK cannot trust the Tories to deliver, at least not on their own. This Labour government may be a disaster. But Kemi Badenoch’s Tories are not the solution.