The new prime minister must reconcile their ideas with the Johnson legacy 

Both Conservative leadership contenders are on record as saying they intend to continue delivering the Conservative Party’s 2019 election manifesto. At a hustings in Cardiff, Liz Truss told the audience that "we need to prove to people who voted for us in 2019 that we can deliver what we promised in our 2019 manifesto’.^[1] Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak made a pragmatic case for sticking to the manifesto in an interview with Conservative Home. He argued that "a screeching U-turn on lots of policies that were in the 2019 manifesto is going to be tricky to implement".^[2] 

Whoever becomes prime minister will have to reconcile promises of change with existing commitments 

In the leadership election so far, both candidates have promised a change in approach – in some areas departing from what the Conservatives promised in 2019.  

Sometimes this has been explicit. For example, Liz Truss’s pledges on taxation and spending mean a Truss government would likely break the manifesto’s fiscal rules, and she has proposed ending the moratorium on fracking it promised.^[3] Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak is committed to upholding Boris Johnson’s manifesto-pledge-breaking National Insurance rise.  

In other instances, the shift away from the manifesto is implied. By setting out a host of new priorities, whoever becomes prime minister will draw bandwidth away from existing efforts to implement the 2019 manifesto. Changing course means pledges already in train will not be delivered. And as co-author of the manifesto Rachel Wolf noted, the fact that some key pledges, including on the NHS and skills, have barely featured in this leadership campaign suggests they may be quietly shelved.^[4] 

There is an important question about whether a new prime minister chosen by the Conservative membership should embark on delivering fresh personal priorities at the expense of some of the pledges set out to the whole country in 2019. But given an appeal to the 2019 mandate is one of the main arguments the leadership contenders have been using to reject calls for an early general election, it will remain an important document. The way that previous administrations have resolved this tension is by undertaking a reconciliation exercise, adapting their interpretation of the manifesto to mesh better with their own priorities. 

Candidates should learn from the approach Theresa May’s team took 

After the EU referendum in 2016, new prime minister Theresa May came into office promising a break from the past. But she drew her legitimacy from David Cameron’s 2015 manifesto – as her then chief of staff Nick Timothy described it, "there was no mandate for a break with David Cameron’s agenda".^[5] 

As a result, cabinet office minister Ben Gummer oversaw an exercise that drew together May’s thinking with the existing 2015 manifesto commitments. The result was 554 pledges, some reflecting May’s new priorities but the bulk of which were existing manifesto commitments. Each individual pledge was assessed in turn and wherever possible assigned a concrete metric against which successful delivery could be measured.^[6] 

Whoever becomes prime minister should commission a similar exercise, with a particular focus on assessing the mutual compatibility of pledges in order to avoid contradictions and confusion in government. 

Incompatible pledges will inevitably arise – including on tax and spending, given the manifesto contained baked-in contradictions and the fiscal, geopolitical and public health situation has substantially departed from what was envisaged in 2019. Decisions will need to be made on how to approach the necessary trade-offs between manifesto commitments and the candidates’ new pledges which depart from its fiscal vision. Despite political pressures, as the campaign continues, the two leadership contenders ought to be wary of making ever more incompatible pledges that will end up damaging public trust and the fortunes of their future government. 

Once its programme is defined, the government must deliver 

In her speech at the launch of new pressure group Conservative Way Forward, Suella Braverman, now a Truss supporter, argued that the Conservatives were in danger of becoming ‘a post-modern party’ which confused announcement of policy with delivering it in reality.^[7]

Braverman is right to point out that words are not enough. Reconciling leadership pledges with the manifesto is only the first step of what will likely be a difficult two years before the next election. In the midst of headwinds like the cost of living crisis and the increasing precarity of the UK’s energy supplies, ministers and civil servants alike must relentlessly focus on implementing the programme of government that they think will improve people’s lives.  

1. Liz Truss, Twitter, 3 August 2022, https://twitter.com/trussliz/status/1554917911088828416?s=20&t=YsMQXvq2HD3G_A7iS8Jdyg
2. Conservative Home, Interview: Sunak. “I genuinely think saddling our children with debts that we didn’t have the courage to deal with ourselves isn’t right.”, 28 July 2022, https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/28/interview-sunak-i-genuinely-think-saddling-our-children-with-debts-that-we-didnt-have-the-courage-to-deal-with-ourselves-isnt-right/
3. Adam S, Joyce R, Stockton I, Waters T and Zaranko B, Tax and spending policies of Conservative leadership contenders, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 21 July 2022, https://ifs.org.uk/publications/16135
4. Wolf R, What the UK needs from the next Conservative leader, Politico, 23 July 2022, www.politico.eu/article/uk-need-next-conservative-leader-rishi-sunak-liz-truss
5. Timothy N, Remaking One Nation: The Future of Conservatism, Polity Press, 2020, p. 7.
6. Seldon A and Newell R, May at 10, Biteback, 2019.
7. Latika M Bourke, Twitter, 11 July 2022, https://twitter.com/latikambourke/status/1546483385174036480?s=20&t=5liL4cUQaZRAxH_4ufyIFw