POLITICAL PARTIES EVIDENCE

• SNP attained 81% of the seats in Scotland in 2019
• The average % of seats Lab + Con have won since WW1 is 91%
• Wales Assembly referendum results were 50/50
• Labour Party was fined £20k for accepting money from Russian oligarchs
• Conservative party received £8m from Lord Ashcroft between 2001 - 2010
• In 2019, the UK Government announced plans to ban foreign donations from being used in political campaigns.
• Electoral Commission said parties collectively spent £76.6 million on campaigning activities
• Conservatives and Labour have won an average 91% of seats since WW1
• In the 2019 European Parliament election, the Green Party won 12% of the vote in the European elected and electing 7 MEPs
• The number of people voting Green increased by 40% from 2017
• Tory party gained 80 seat majority in 2019  - provided a sense of security during COVID/national crises
•  In Wales, there have been coalition governments between Labour and Plaid Cymru who frequently win 20%+ of the popular vote in Wales
• Keir Starmer won the leadership election with 56.2% of the votes cast by Labour members, registered supporters, affiliated trade unionists, and constituency parties
• Between 2010 and 2019, the Conservative government reduced corporation tax in the UK from 28% to 19%.
• The Conservative mini-budget in October 2023 was heavily driven by Thatcherism
• Cooperation tax was set to be cut to below 19% in Truss’ minibudget, abolishing a previous Conservative commitment to raise cooperation tax to 25%
• Truss's plan to scrap the top rate of income tax (45%) would cost £7 billion per year according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies
• Labour has pledged to increase corporation tax back up to 25%, which is still lower than it was under Blair
• In October 2022, Truss launched a energy price guarantee which meant that the average family would not pay more than £2.5k per year on energy bills
• From April 2023, lowest rate of income tax was slashed to 19% by the Conservatives (lowest it has ever been). This was worth £5bn for workers, savers and pensioners
• In 2017 the Conservatives pledged to raise the personal tax allowance to £12,500.
• In 2016, the chancellor George Osborne introduced a ‘national living wage’ to protect the interests of poorer people.
• The national minimum wage increased from £6.50 an hour to £8.21 an hour in 2021
• Conservatives claimed that Blair’s introduction of the minimum wage in 1997 was an unacceptable interference in the free market
• Labour promised to increase the minimum wage to £10 an hour by 2024
• Labour said they will scrap Universal Credit altogether if elected into power
• 2017 and 2019 conservative manifestos pledging to alter the HRA to ensure it had the ability to deal with national threats such as terrorism
• Theresa May announced plans to repeal the Human Rights Act in her 2016 Conservative Party conference speech
• David Cameron wanted to replace the HRA with a British Bill of Rights but this never happened due to opposition within his own party
• Johnson has previously criticised the HRA for allowing criminals to appeal against deportation orders on the basis of their human rights
• In 2018, Theresa May introduced the Immigration Bill which would allow the government to detain immigrants without trial or charge for up to two years
• In 2022, Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson have been fined for breaking covid rules that they introduced. 
• The labour party has also pointed out that under the conservatives there are 23,000 nuisance incidents of anti-social behaviour every week
• One Nation Tory Ken Clarke said ‘prison does not work’ and he sought to rebalance the criminal justice system
• Theresa May was Home Secretary from 2010 - 2016 and she increased police numbers by 5% and reduced crime rates by 40%
• Boris Johnson as Mayor of London cut youth violence by 70% through his 'London Knife Crime Strategy'
• The Conservatives have recently reflected a priority to defence and security. Reflected recently, in 2024, with Sunak’s defence spending boost to 2.5% of GDP
• In 2021, Boris Johnson announced plans to increase military spending by £16 billion over four years
• In April 2024, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised the UK's largest ever military support package for Ukraine, which includes 400 vehicles, 1,600 weapons, 4 million rounds of ammunition, and £500 million in funding
• The Conservatives have been a significant supporter of Ukraine since the Russian invasion in 2022. The country has pledged almost £12 billion in overall support to Ukraine, with £7.1 billion allocated for military assistance