This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Exeter chapter.
In case you’ve been living in a hole, you will know that this Thursday the nation goes to the polls for a momentous election – and oh boy has it been a ride!
Her Campus have created a guide to the main parties manifestos to help you decide how to use that all important vote!
Conservatives
- Get Brexit done (as if you hadn’t heard Bo-bot repeat that five million times over)
- Increase the number of nurses by 50,000 (fact checked: more around the 30,000 mark)
- No income tax, VAT or National Insurance rises in the next Parliament
- Pensions will continue to rise by 2.5% in line with the triple lock
- Reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050
- Introduce an Australian style points-based immigration visa
- Continue the roll-out of universal credit
- Freeze the current tuition fees which stand at £9,250
Liberal Democrats
- Stop Brexit – Article 50 revoked and Brexit cancelled
- A penny income tax rise to help fund the NHS
- Free childcare for two, three and four-year olds
- Generate 80% of electricity from renewable sources to help reach net zero carbon emissions by 2045
- Recruit 10,000 more teachers
- Legalise cannabis
- Freeze train fares
- Build 300,000 homes a year
Labour
- Increase the health budget by 4.3%
- Hold a second referendum on Brexit which Corbyn would campaign neutrally on
- Introduce a National Care service, providing ‘community-based, person-centred support’
- Bring forward net zero carbon emissions target to the 2030’s
- Nationalise key industries such as Royal Mail and BT
- Scrap Universal Credit
- Free bus travel for under 25’s
- Scrap tuition fees – notably they wouldn’t write off current debt
Green
- Spend 100bn a year to cut emissions
- Invest 6 billion in the NHS
- Remove fossil fuels from the economy
- Plant 700 million trees by 2030
- Build 100,000 zero-carbon homes
- Scrap tuition fees and write off debt for ex-students who paid £9,000 fees
- Ban single use plastic
- Scrap our first past the post system and replace it with a ‘fair and proportional’ alternative
Brexit Party
- No extension to the current transition period which is due to end in December 2020
- No privatisation of the NHS
- Reduce annual immigration with a ‘fair points system’
- Reform the Supreme Court
- Free broadband in deprived areas
- Scrap the BBC licence fee
- Abolish inheritance tax
- Abolish interest on student loans
If you are still looking to learn more about the parties manifesto promises, check out the super useful BBC manifesto guide here!
And last but not least remember to cast your all-important vote this Thursday between 7am and 10pm at your polling station!