BORIS Johnson is poised to take a no-deal Brexit off the table and offer tax cuts as part of the Conservative election manifesto.
In a step away from his previous do or die Brexit pledge Mr Johnson will now focus attention on getting Brexit done immediately by pushing his deal through the Commons after the general election in December.
The move is thought to try to capture the centre ground and appeal to soft Liberal Democrat voters who have concerns over holding a second EU referendum.
In an interview with The Times, Nicky Morgan, the outgoing Culture Secretary said: If you vote Conservative at this election, youre voting to leave with this deal, and no-deal has been effectively been taken off the table.
It is also thought the partys manifesto, expected to be published in a fortnight, will also commit to tax cuts and breaks.
These include:
- a pledge to continue the fuel duty freeze
- extending free childcare for three and four-year-olds
- a rise in the threshold at which people start paying national insurance
- raise the threshold for the 40p rate of income tax from 50,000 to 80,000
In September the Chancellor Sajid Javid unveiled a 13.4billion giveaway to help fund the governments commitments to 20,000 extra coppers, a hospital building programme and reversing school budget cuts.
Concerns though have been raised in Cabinet over the need to trade-off the demand for public spending against tax cuts.
One source told the paper: We cant have both. There has to be a balance.
The manifesto is also thought to contain a strong commitment to law and order with the Home Secretary Priti Patel thought to be set to play a major role in the election campaign.
A source said: There will be a hard Home Office edge to the manifesto.
The polling shows that Labour are seen as weak on law and order from being pretty level at the last election.
Polling figures shown to the Cabinet indicated he Tories were narrowly ahead of Labour on the NHS after a series of pledges to build hospitals and invest billions of pounds in the service.
The forthcoming manifesto is thought to be slimmed down and far clearer than the last one in 2017 under Theresa May which backfired after controversial reforms to social care were forced through that critics labelled a dementia tax.
A source told the paper: This is about putting money in peoples pockets.
