David Frost tells PM to adopt more conservative policies or risk losing election
Boris Johnson must adopt a low-tax agenda or risk losing the next election, according to former cabinet minister Lord David Frost.
Frost, who resigned from his role as a Cabinet Office minister last month, said that Johnson needs to “get the country going economically again” post-Brexit and “that means free markets, free debate and low taxes”.
The former defacto Brexit secretary quit over Johnson’s Plan B Covid restrictions, which saw the implementation of mandatory face masks and vaccine passports for large events.
Frost had also grown unhappy with a series of tax rises announced by chancellor Rishi Sunak, which will bring the UK’s tax burden to its highest point in more than sixty years, and Johnson’s commitment to net-zero.
The low-tax Tory told the Mail on Sunday that Johnson should use the UK’s legislative freedom post-Brexit to dramatically slash regulation and lower taxes.
“We all agreed in 2019 and 2020 on the sort of Brexit we wanted regardless of where people had been in the referendum. It was very clear that we wanted a Brexit that was about giving this country freedom,” he said.
“It wasn’t about tying us into other people’s standards and other ways of doing things.
“We need to get the country going economically again and that means free markets, free debate and low taxes. People need to look at this country and think, yes, something is changing here. You’ve got to set the direction of travel. If we’re going to get out of this little trough and win the Election in a couple of years’ time, then we’ve got to develop that.”
It comes as Johnson and Sunak are facing pressure from the Tory backbenches and Labour to cancel a 1.25 per cent increase in National Insurance due to take place in April.
There has also been some dissent from within the government, after House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg called for a U-turn on the tax rise in a cabinet meeting this week.
Sunak said on Thursday that he would not be reversing his decision on the tax hike.