Boris Johnson has been accused of breaking his promise on minimum wage increases just a week after the general election took place.
The Conservatives pledged to hike the minimum wage to £10.50 an hour within five years in its manifesto, but today’s Queen’s Speech includes a cheeky get-out clause.
The increase will now only happen “provided economic conditions allow”.
And with a turbulent break up from the EU on the way, that may prove difficult.
Economic headwinds
According to independent trade experts Johnson’s Brexit plan will reduce the UK economy by almost 2 per cent.
And even if mitigating trade deals with the US, Australia and New Zealand were somehow agreed at the same time as writing a Brussels deal, the Conservative Party leader’s withdrawal plans would still see UK output decline significantly.
The news will come as a bitter blow for workers who are suffering on wages that are still comparatively below 2007 levels.
Especially the blue collar workers who reportedly backed the Conservatives in their droves during the election.
Manifesto pledge
Chancellor Sajid Javid unveiled in October Tory plans to raise the current National Living Wage rate of £8.21 an hour to £10.50 an hour within five years.
The party said the policy would benefit 4m low paid workers across the country, with some parts of the north set to pocket big increases during the parliament’s five-year term.
“It’s clear it’s the Conservatives who are the real party of labour. We are the workers party,” he told the conference in Manchester in October.
U-turn
But guidance in Johnson’s Queen’s Speech, which sets out the party’s programme for government, leaves a get-out clause which would allow them to perform a U-turn.
The guidance reads: “The chancellor has pledged that the National Living Wage will increase, reaching two-thirds of median earnings within five years (projected to be around £10.50-an-hour in 2024), provided economic conditions allow).”
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Seriously, some people have been really naive about the Conservatives. They will understand quickly…
But they won’t.
Pfft, no they won’t. Those people will pretend like the promise was never made and cry “fake news”, all while sitting around at home smugly counting the pence in their purses to see whether or not they can buy a meal within the next week, confident they’ve “stuck it to Labour” because Johnson told them so.
He just wanted to be in for the end of teh world.
Tis why hes a cunt. He positioned himself that he thinks he’ll survive the coming tragedy.
Nothing new here Boris backed every so called policy with this proviso and no one was listening, so tory voters serves you right
These ‘new Tories’ will learn a very bitter lesson they will never forget. One way it is good that their delusion will go away forever; but they will be left with a wound that will never heal.
vetoed my comment as an owner of a SME.
not warm deep or desireable. Bit wet but so was last weeks barbie
Turkeys voted for Christmas.
It’s sad, but they deserve what they get.
‘provided economic conditions allow’
So this means what exactly? If Boris Johnson is able to pitch up on a flying unicorn in full song and dance mode with a genie at his hip and the Queen about to be his one true love?
Make sense to me. If the economic conditions are good you will get £10.50ph. if the economic conditions is bad and they give you £10.50 ph there will be job loses, food prices will rise each. Stop with the scaremongering. And do your job at tell the news in the right way.
“if the economic conditions is bad and they give you £10.50 ph there will be job loses, food prices will rise each.”
as the article also states; the fact that the economy WILL be bad because of Brexit means it was an entirely empty promise that was never intended to be kept. We are already entering recession as it is and Brexit, before even having left, has left the country down 20-30billion in revenue this year alone..
so yea, they *are* reporting the right way. If you want to continue living in your deluded little bubble of TAKINGBACKCONTROL that’s up to you. I just wish you didn’t bring the entire country down with you.
fuck off tory
Thank you, a rational person on this site. Good god, the news in Britain looks just as skewed and fucked up as the US. I guess liberals are liberals though.
Hope the Working Class Tories are happy with themselves for voting in the grade 1 Scheming Liar called Bonkers Boris. The first option to U TURN has now been revealed.
I spoiled my ballot. My Brexit candidate was pulled by Farages non deal with the Tories. I could not vote for a tossed like Corbyn or Swinson who tried to thwart the Leave vote after insulting my intelligence and judgement. I want out for all the reasons on The Full Brexit. However I also could not vote Tory after the last decade. I hope we get out and the Tories don’t do irreparable damage and we can get a socialist government in 5 years. Remember the Thatcher Major years and the backlash. It can happen again.
Well, your judgement is terrible and you’re obviously a bit thick and gullible to vote for Brexit. A socialist government is the antithesis of Brexit so there’s that too.
Let’s wait and see what happens it may be that the economic conditions do allow, I think the remit of the Low wage commission who makes the recommendation always had that clause and usually the Chancellor follows their recommendation.
Boris was a habitual liar as a journalist, a London mayor, government minister and prime minister. What’s new?
They haven’t broken their promise (not yet, anyway). We won’t know whether the minimum wage will bee £10.50/hour in 2024 until 2024. Even if they hadn’t included the get-out clause, we still wouldn’t know until 2024.
It was supposed to be £9 in 2020, but it isn’t.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33437115
Now, if “economic conditions” are right, it’ll be £10.50 in 2024? Forecasting a £1.50 difference in four years from the forecast done in 2015.
Yes, it is always worth reminding people of the promises Conservative governments have made and not kept.
Ha because Brits, like the Tories have said ARE stupid! especially the ones who went Tory to make themselves look smarter – now onto taxing the poor more…..
Its basic economics people. Tory’s winning in a time when the country needs to be represented on the world stage is by far the best foot forward. While Boris is Trump with an accent, we have to give him and this team the opportunity to get the UK in better standings than we are right now. All of us need to play our part and stop with the constant barrage of rubbish. Look out the window and think about the people around the world that worse off. So yes, it is terrible that they have gone back on a deal that was cooked without the due-diligence, however as your mum may of said to you “money does not grow on trees” and i am still very proud of being born in the UK and i will do what i ever i can to help move the ball forward. I will tell you there is more to come before the good news start to flow. Look to history, Look to what Churchill and Thatcher did. Both did remarkable things in a time when the country needed them to step up. The job is not easy people. In fact if you need to blame someone, look to politicians that represent you in your respective areas for dragging their heals when the people had spoken. No point in looking backwards at this point. Let’s give them the opportunity to be great and see what he can do now he has the power to do so.
Check it out! World wide, the baine in almost everyone’s existance is the same. Never have you heard people who actually work and aren’t brainwashed praise their own government. Unless you work for a government and are holding a gun to that persons head, of course. The haves never have enough and those haves having power want you to earn for them, not yourselves. Why do you think they call you, call us “TAX CATTLE”?
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ACROSS THE POND.
Guardian reports that minimum wage will be increased at 4 times inflation as of April.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/dec/31/boris-johnson-to-raise-minimum-wages-by-four-times-inflation
No idea why my comment was taken down so re-posting.
This article is grossly misleading as the government have said that minimum wage will increase at 4x inflation as of April.