As the autumn air settled over Manchester on October 5, 2025, the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party gathered for a conference that promised nothing short of a political reset. Facing plummeting poll numbers and a surging Reform UK party, Conservative leaders unveiled a sweeping set of proposals that would dramatically reshape the nation’s approach to public spending, immigration, and climate policy. The message was clear: the Tories are betting on bold, sometimes controversial, reforms to win back a skeptical electorate.
Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride took center stage with a headline promise: a future Conservative government would save £47 billion over five years by slashing spending across welfare, foreign aid, civil service staffing, and green subsidies. "We must get on top of government spending," Stride declared, according to BBC. "We cannot deliver stability unless we live within our means. We’re the only party that gets it. The only party that will stand up for fiscal responsibility."
The details of the plan are nothing if not ambitious. The largest slice of savings—£23 billion—would come from welfare reforms. Among the most contentious proposals: ending benefit payments for people with so-called "low-level" mental health conditions, instead offering what the party describes as treatment and support rather than cash. The Conservatives also want to bar non-citizens from claiming state support, review exemptions for the Household Benefit Cap, and limit the VAT subsidy for Motability, which allows claimants to lease vehicles.
Stride’s plan doesn’t stop at welfare. The Conservatives would reduce the number of civil servants by around 132,000—roughly a quarter—bringing staffing levels down from 517,000 to 384,000 and saving £8 billion. Overseas aid would be cut to just 0.1% of national income, a move projected to save £7 billion. That’s a sharp drop from the 0.7% target set under David Cameron, and even lower than the 0.3% promised by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government earlier this year. Stride also promised to end the use of hotels for asylum seekers, saving a further £3.5 billion, and to reserve £4 billion by ensuring benefits and social housing are available only to UK nationals.
The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, added her own hardline proposals to the mix. In a move that echoes the policies of former U.S. President Donald Trump and the rhetoric of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Badenoch pledged to create a new "removals force" modeled on America’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The aim: deport 150,000 undocumented immigrants each year. The force would be armed with facial recognition technology to track undocumented migrants, and the asylum system would be overhauled—criteria for claiming asylum would be tightened, and immigration tribunals that hear appeals against failed claims would be abolished.
"The fact is, there are too many people in our country who should not be here," Badenoch told the BBC. "They don’t belong here, they are committing crimes, they are hurting people." She was pressed on the details—where would 150,000 deportees be sent each year?—but remained vague: "They will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here." The removals force would have a budget of £1.6 billion, funded by cutting costs for accommodating asylum seekers.
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Badenoch’s announcement was her promise to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a move that would have once been unthinkable for a mainstream British party. She made it clear: no one who opposes leaving the ECHR would be allowed to stand as a Conservative candidate. This, she argued, was necessary to regain control over the country’s borders and asylum policies.
The party’s new direction also targets environmental policy. Badenoch and Stride both committed to repealing the 2008 Climate Change Act, which set legally binding targets for reducing carbon emissions and achieving net zero. They argued that green subsidies for heat pumps and electric vehicles are "costly and ineffective," promising to scrap them and save an additional £1.6 billion. The move is a direct response to voter concerns about the cost of living and skepticism toward net zero policies, but it has drawn sharp criticism from environmental groups and some business leaders.
These announcements come as the Conservatives mark almost a year since Badenoch took the reins as party leader. It’s been a tumultuous 12 months: the party has struggled to counter the rise of Reform UK, suffered heavy defeats in local elections, and watched its approval rating sink to around 16 percent, according to The New York Times. The Tories’ rightward shift is widely seen as a bid to win back voters drawn to Farage’s anti-immigration platform and to differentiate themselves from Labour’s more centrist policies.
Yet the proposals have not gone unchallenged. The Institute for Economic Affairs, a free-market think tank, welcomed some of the savings but warned that the Conservatives were ignoring the "elephant in the room"—age-related spending, especially on pensions. Tom Clougherty, the IEA’s executive director, told The Independent: "Ultimately, no political party is going to be able to balance the books only by cutting things their supporters don’t like. Long-term fiscal sustainability requires that we engineer a different trajectory for spending on pensions, social care, and old-age healthcare. Without that, other cuts are likely to amount to running to stand still."
On the other side of the spectrum, Romilly Greenhill, chief executive of Bond, the network of international development organizations, called the proposed aid cuts "reckless, short-sighted, and morally indefensible." Labour, for its part, accused Badenoch of failing to provide basic details for her immigration plan, dismissing the proposals as "the same old Tory Party making the same old mistakes." Labour’s own government has faced pressure over its welfare policies and has not shied away from toughening its stance on immigration and public order, particularly in the wake of a recent attack on a Manchester synagogue.
The timing of these announcements is no accident. With Chancellor Rachel Reeves scheduled to deliver her Budget on November 26, speculation is rife that Labour will have to raise taxes to meet its fiscal rules, despite promises not to increase income tax, National Insurance, or VAT for working people. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that Reeves has only a "very small margin"—a £10 billion buffer—in which to operate.
As the political ground shifts beneath their feet, the Conservatives are making a high-stakes gamble. By doubling down on fiscal restraint, tougher borders, and a rollback of green policies, they hope to recapture the narrative and stem the tide of voter discontent. Whether these moves will restore public trust—or simply deepen the party’s woes—remains to be seen. But in Manchester this week, the message was unmistakable: the Conservatives are ready to fight for their future, one radical reform at a time.
