‘New Tories’ or ‘Blue Labour’: is Boris Johnson ushering in new era of conservatism?

Boris Johnson has ruffled feathers among the Conservative faithful with his plan to hike National Insurance contributions to rescue the NHS and social care.

The 1.25% increase will push the tax burden on British workers to the “highest level since 1950”, said the Financial Times (FT), and has prompted fury among Tory backbenchers. Some have argued that the manifesto-breaking tax rise will “define” Johnson’s premiership.

So is the prime minister ushering in a new era of conservatism - or has his party simply lost its way?

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'New Tories'

Those shocked at Johnson’s decision to increase taxes to their highest level for 70 years should pay closer attention to Conservative history, “as well the prime minister’s rise to power”, argued The Times in today’s leader.

As the “oldest and most successful political party in Britain”, the Conservative Party “owes much of its longevity to being light on orthodoxy and long on pragmatism”, the paper continued. And this new plan “follows a strategy that depends on the support of an electoral base dominated by older people, with an increasing share dependent on public services”.

But while the decision to raise taxes in order to fund social care reforms and clear the NHS backlog may signal the arrival of the “New Tories”, it “comes with political costs as well as opportunities”. Voters “will expect to see real improvements in health and care by the next election and will punish failure”.

The tax hike may be “a particularly un-Conservative one”, said Politico, but it signals that Johnson is “getting back to the business of governing”. The PM is taking the opportunity to “seize the political initiative” by “gambling on fixing an issue that has plagued politicians of all stripes”.

So far, it looks like the gamble could go either way with the public. A YouGov survey of almost 1,900 people following the funding plan announcement found that 44% supported or strongly supported the tax increase, while 43% were opposed or strongly opposed.

Levels of support among party insiders appear to be lower, however. “Conservative ministers spent the weekend before the announcement briefing the media that they did not enter politics to raise taxes,” said The Economist, but “Johnson simply ignored them”.

The PM seems to be banking on a shift in public attitudes in which a “plurality say it was acceptable to break the manifesto in order to fund social care”, the newspaper added.

But “it is not often that a Tory prime minister takes such a hit to fund public services” and future promises to keep taxes low “will carry less weight”.

The political decisions made by Johnson’s government may seem “bewildering, especially for those remaining true believers on the Right”, said The Independent.

The “key to understanding what is happening is to understand that Johnson leads a populist government”, the paper argued. He “lives on phrase-making”, such as his pledge to “get Brexit done”, and “has little time to concern himself with ideological purity or consistency”.

Instead, he is altering the political terrain “towards a form of populism that defies normal left-right definitions” - “the kind of politics Johnson excels at”.

'Blue Labour'

Some commentators are also unconvinced that shifting the ideological basis of the Conservative Party is a wise move by Johnson.

“Welcome to tax-and-spend Toryism,” Allison Pearson told her co-host Liam Halligan on The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast after the tax rise announcement.

“This is no longer a party of low taxes and high growth,” said Pearson. “Boris Johnson has gone full Labour on us with his health and social care levy.”

The verdicts from other writers at the traditionally pro-government newspaper were equally scathing.

“Shame on Johnson, and shame on the Conservative Party,” said The Sunday Telegraph editor Allister Heath, who argued that the tax hike “symbolises the party’s repudiation of the conservative and classical liberal world view”.

“This government is no longer Thatcherite, or even conservative: it is Blue Labour,” he added.

“An entire intellectual tradition now lies trashed by a Conservative Party which has, for the sake of convenience, unthinkingly swallowed its opponents’ ideology,” Heath wrote. “Reaganomics is dead in Britain: there are now two Labour parties at one on economics, but divided on culture.”

Whatever label is applied to Johnson’s brand of conservatism, a right-of-centre government that delivers left-of-centre policies poses “a significant problem” for Labour, said The Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott.

“For decades, many on the left have hankered for the social democratic political settlement of other European countries”, and have called for the UK to “ditch Thatcherism once and for all, and embrace higher taxes as the means of improving public services”.

Thanks to Johnson, “it has happened”, Elliott continued. So “if the Labour Party is ever to return to power, it must stop repeating the line parroted by Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions that this is the ‘same old Tory party’”.

On the other hand, Elliott added, the “good news” is that Johnson’s tack to the left on the economy signals that “the Left has won the economic and political argument”.

But “while voters are warming to social democracy, they don’t seem to want the opposition to provide it”.