TORY MPS FEAR VOTER REVOLT

Red Wall could crumble over tax and pension plan ‘madness’

- David Maddox

PROPOSED tax rises and changes to pensions could cost the Conservatives the next election, worried Tory Red Wall MPs have warned.

Suggested schemes to increase National Insurance payments, alongside ditching the triple lock protection on the state pension, were last night described as “madness” by Conservatives.

In what is shaping up to be a crucial week for his leadership, Boris Johnson is facing pressure from his own MPs over social care, tax rises, pensions, illegal immigration and costly green policies.

Mr Johnson won his 80-seat majority on the back of a swathe of Red Wall seats – those which would traditionally be expected to vote Labour. He pledged to “level up” the country. But backbenchers have said that the Prime Minister is “facing massive discontent” when Parliament returns this week and that things are “likely to kick off” after the suggestion to increase taxes to fund social care was floated.

One of the 2019 intake from a northern seat, said: “I did not become a Conservative MP to raise taxes.”

Another Red Wall Tory added: “We are now the party with the highest tax burden since [former Labour prime minister Clement] Attlee.”