Not got time to read the whole article? Here are the key points.
We elect MPs, not the Prime Minister directly, and a manifesto is not a legally binding contract.
Governments must be able to change policy when circumstances change. Sometimes breaking a manifesto commitment may be the responsible thing to do.
But changing a promise shouldn’t mean escaping accountability for making it.
When a significant manifesto commitment is abandoned, the government should explain what changed, why it changed, what evidence supports the decision and what replaces the original promise.
A change of Prime Minister doesn’t automatically require a general election under the UK system.
But if a new Prime Minister substantially changes the programme voters were originally presented with, it’s reasonable to ask where the mandate for that new direction comes from.
Citizens should be able to challenge government policy without legitimate questions simply being dismissed with political labels.
I don’t think every broken promise should trigger an election. Government would become unworkable.
But if a government fundamentally abandons the programme on which it was elected, we should at least debate whether voters deserve another say.
One possible reform would be an annual Manifesto Accountability Report showing which major promises have been delivered, remain in progress, have changed or have been abandoned.
The principle is simple: governments need the freedom to change course. But that shouldn’t mean freedom from explanation.
Every few years, Britain goes through the same ritual.
Political parties publish their manifestos.
Politicians travel around the country telling us what they will do if we give them power.
Tax.
Immigration.
Housing.
Pensions.
The NHS.
Public services.
The economy.
Promises are made.
We listen.
We argue.
And eventually, we vote.
Then the election ends.
A government takes office.
And sometimes the promises begin to change.
There may be perfectly legitimate reasons for that.
Circumstances change.
Wars happen.
Economies deteriorate.
Pandemics arrive.
Financial forecasts turn out to be wrong.
A responsible government cannot blindly follow a document written years earlier when the world around it has fundamentally changed.
I accept that.
But accepting that governments sometimes need to change direction raises a much more uncomfortable question.
When a government breaks a significant promise, what does it owe the people who voted for it?
Surely the answer cannot simply be:
Nothing.
A manifesto isn’t a contract — but it isn’t meaningless
Let’s get one important fact out of the way.
A manifesto is not a legally enforceable contract between a political party and the electorate.
Britain doesn’t directly elect its Prime Minister either.
We elect Members of Parliament, and our parliamentary system determines who is able to form a government.
But none of that makes the manifesto meaningless.
A manifesto sets out the policies and priorities a political party puts before voters.
Parties spend months preparing them.
Journalists analyse them.
Opponents challenge them.
Politicians quote from them.
Television debates revolve around them.
And voters can use them when deciding who they want to govern.
There is even a constitutional convention demonstrating the significance attached to manifesto commitments.
Under the Salisbury Convention, the House of Lords normally does not vote down at second or third reading government legislation implementing something included in the governing party’s election manifesto.
So manifestos clearly matter.
If a manifesto helps provide democratic legitimacy for implementing a government’s programme, shouldn’t abandoning a major part of that programme deserve serious explanation as well?
Who checks the promises?
This is where things become interesting.
The Electoral Commission regulates important parts of elections and campaign finance.
But it does not generally regulate the political claims contained in campaign material.
Nor does it verify or correct ordinary political claims made during an election campaign.
There are particular legal restrictions in specific circumstances, including rules concerning certain false statements about candidates.
But there isn’t an electoral regulator checking every manifesto promise before an election and subsequently enforcing its delivery afterwards.
Manifesto commitments are principally matters of political accountability.
Perhaps that’s unavoidable.
Turning every manifesto promise into a legally enforceable contract could make effective government almost impossible.
But if we’re going to rely on political rather than legal accountability, then surely that political accountability needs to mean something.
You can change the promise. But explain yourself.
I don’t want governments paralysed.
I don’t want a general election every time a Chancellor changes a tax allowance.
And I certainly don’t want a government continuing with a disastrous policy simply because somebody typed it into a manifesto several years earlier.
Governments need flexibility.
But flexibility and accountability aren’t opposites.
There is a simple democratic principle I think is worth considering:
You can change the promise. But you don’t get to pretend you never made it.
If a government abandons a significant manifesto commitment, tell us:
What did you promise?
What changed?
Why can you no longer reasonably deliver it?
What evidence supports that decision?
What are you doing instead?
Put the explanation on the record.
Let Parliament examine it.
Let journalists investigate it.
Let the opposition challenge it.
And let citizens decide whether the explanation is good enough.
That isn’t revolutionary.
It’s accountability.
Parliament already holds government to account
Britain already has substantial mechanisms for scrutinising government.
MPs question ministers.
Ministers make statements to Parliament.
Select committees investigate government departments.
Written parliamentary questions put information into the public record.
Parliament scrutinises taxation and public spending.
All of this matters.
But there’s a difference between a government being constitutionally accountable to Parliament and an individual citizen being able to understand what happened to the promises presented during an election.
Try something.
Take the manifesto on which the government was elected.
Choose one significant promise.
Now answer four questions:
Was it delivered?
Is it still being pursued?
Has it changed?
Has it been abandoned?
For something important enough to be presented to us when asking for our vote, shouldn’t answering those questions be straightforward?
What happens when the Prime Minister changes?
Then we reach another interesting feature of the British system.
The public doesn’t directly elect the Prime Minister.
At a general election, we elect MPs.
A governing party can therefore change its leader during a Parliament without automatically holding another general election.
That isn’t some constitutional trick.
It’s part of how Britain’s parliamentary democracy works.
And simply changing the individual at the top doesn’t necessarily invalidate the government’s mandate.
But suppose something more fundamental happens.
A Prime Minister leaves.
Another takes over.
And the new Prime Minister substantially changes the programme of government.
Now I think citizens are entitled to ask:
Where does the mandate for the new programme come from?
There is a strong constitutional answer.
We elect MPs for a Parliament.
We don’t elect a president with a personally binding programme.
A government capable of commanding the confidence of the House of Commons can continue to govern.
That’s an important argument.
We shouldn’t brush it aside simply because we don’t like the outcome.
But neither should it end the conversation.
If a government spends an election asking people to support one programme and subsequently governs on a substantially different one, surely citizens are entitled to ask what happened.
And perhaps, eventually, whether they should get another say.
Let people ask difficult questions
This matters.
Citizens should be able to question their government robustly.
That doesn’t mean every criticism is correct.
Something doesn’t become true because thousands of people repeat it on social media.
And freedom to criticise doesn’t remove our responsibility for what we say.
But legitimate questions deserve substantive answers.
If somebody asks why a manifesto commitment has disappeared, answer the question.
If somebody asks where their taxes are going, show them.
If somebody challenges policy on immigration, housing, the NHS, welfare, policing or public spending, address the argument.
Calling somebody left wing doesn’t prove their argument wrong.
Calling somebody right wing doesn’t prove their argument wrong.
Calling somebody woke, elite or establishment doesn’t prove them wrong either.
If an argument is wrong, demonstrate why it is wrong.
Evidence should win the argument.
Not the label.
These are questions citizens should be entitled to ask regardless of how they vote.
Should breaking a manifesto trigger an election?
Not automatically.
It sounds attractive until you think about how government actually works.
Circumstances change constantly.
Governments would become incapable of responding effectively to events if every policy reversal potentially triggered a national election.
But there is still a difficult question:
When does changing policy become fundamentally changing the programme people voted for?
One broken commitment?
Probably not.
Several?
It depends upon their importance.
What if the central economic programme changes?
What if the government’s fundamental approach to taxation changes?
What if a replacement Prime Minister abandons several defining commitments presented at the election?
There isn’t an obvious mathematical threshold.
But the absence of an easy answer doesn’t make the question invalid.
Here’s one idea
Perhaps we don’t need to turn manifestos into legally binding contracts.
Perhaps we need something much simpler.
Every government could publish an annual Manifesto Accountability Report.
Take every significant manifesto commitment and place it into one of four categories:
Delivered
In progress
Changed
Abandoned
For anything significantly changed or abandoned, explain why.
Tell us what changed.
Show us the evidence.
Tell us what replaces the original commitment.
And make the report accessible to everybody rather than requiring citizens to piece together the story from ministerial statements, parliamentary answers, government reports and news coverage.
Then Parliament can scrutinise it.
Journalists can interrogate it.
Independent organisations can examine it.
And citizens can make up their own minds.
No court cases.
No government paralysis.
No pretending circumstances never change.
Just accountability.
And what about a general election?
I’d go one step further.
But here I’m asking a question rather than pretending I have the perfect answer.
If a government fundamentally abandons the programme on which it was elected:
Should there eventually be a mechanism requiring it to seek a renewed mandate from the electorate?
That should be a very high threshold.
Governments need stability.
We cannot hold elections every time opinion polls move or a policy becomes unpopular.
But political power ultimately derives from the electorate.
If the programme becomes substantially different from the one placed before voters, there is at least a democratic argument that voters should eventually be allowed to decide whether they still support it.
The difficult part is deciding when that threshold has been crossed.
Government deciding for itself presents an obvious problem.
Parliament?
Possibly.
Some form of independent constitutional mechanism?
Perhaps.
I don’t know the perfect answer.
And that’s rather the point.
This isn’t an argument against one government.
It isn’t an argument for another political party.
It’s a question about how much accountability we should expect from whichever government happens to be governing us.
Where do we go from here?
Before an election, we’re repeatedly told that our vote matters enormously.
We’re presented with manifestos.
We’re courted.
We’re promised things.
We’re told we have a choice about the country’s direction.
Then the election finishes.
I don’t think democratic accountability should finish with it.
Government should be able to make difficult decisions.
It should sometimes make unpopular decisions.
And when circumstances genuinely change, it should be able to change course.
But with that power should come an obligation to explain itself.
If circumstances force you to break a promise, tell us.
If the evidence has changed, show us.
If the original policy was wrong, admit it.
If you’re changing direction, explain where you’re taking us.
And if the entire programme becomes fundamentally different from the one people were asked to support, perhaps we should at least be willing to discuss whether the mandate needs renewing.
A manifesto shouldn’t be an unbreakable contract.
But neither should it become a disposable election leaflet.
You asked for our vote.
We gave you power.
Surely we’re entitled to ask what happened to the promises that helped you get it.
Sources and further reading
UK Parliament — Parliamentary scrutiny and the role of Parliament
UK Parliament — Salisbury Convention
Electoral Commission — Claims made in campaign material
Electoral Commission — Engaging with campaign material at elections