The government has published its plans for how it is going to “capitalise” on the benefits of leaving the European Union. But predictably, despite the positive language to please voters, there is very little radical change.
On the positives, leaving the EU means that we no longer make contributions to the EU’s budget and we can exclusively hold our own elected politicians to account for wasteful public spending. Cuts in VAT are now possible, as well as the abolition of VAT in the future, and the reductions in import tariffs will lead to lower prices on essential goods and services helping the poorest the most.
Freeports are an excellent initiative, however much like free schools, freeports serve as political window dressing for the Tories rather than a principled core component of our new economy. There will be very few of them and they will be very tightly regulated by a government department.
As it has been revealed by a member of a short-lived government working group on freeports, the Treasury will find ways to kick them into the long grass, while only 8 will be established and public relations, not economics, will establish where.
Freeing up small and medium-sized businesses ought to be our priority
However as far as the economy is concerned, the whole point of ‘Brexit’ was to radically strip back the excessive rules and regulations that governed 100% of our businesses regardless as to whether they traded with companies in the EU or not (and most don’t).
Big businesses have armies of legal advisors and project managers to adapt to extensive and complex regulations, but small businesses do not. Excessive rules therefore massively disadvantage small and medium-sized businesses and this is the reason why corporations often lobby for more – to protect themselves by obstructing market entry and innovation by others.
The Tories like to pretend they are on the side of small business, but in truth they are on the side of huge corporations and vested interests. The Foundation Party is on the side of small business as we are fundamentally in favour of open free markets. Reducing vast regulations and simplifying tax codes for a more level-playing field is the sure way to truly support small business.
Vowing “better regulation”, the government’s plans will pave the way for new regulations on cars, alcoholic drinks, clinical trials, financial services and more, and newly established quangos to oversee.
A new wave of regulations to strangle our industries, reduce competition and increase the cost of goods and services, will be one of the many ways we pay for the “net zero” religious zealotry that will hurt the poorest the most.
Chris Mendes, Party Leader
The ‘one-in-two-out’ rule, which encourages regulators to improve existing regulation rather than to simply add more, is to be scrapped because “[we] do not think it is consistent with delivering world-class regulation to support the economy in adapting to a new wave of technological revolution or to achieving net zero.”
It is noteworthy that the phrase “net zero” featured 33 times in their proposal document, while a word like “deregulation”, a priority that even the social democrat Barack Obama committed to during his presidency in the US, featured not once.
Ever since Greta Thunberg became the de facto Environment Secretary for every western government without firm economic principles or the courage to strike the right balance even if they did, a new wave of regulations to strangle our industries, reduce competition and increase the cost of goods and services, will be one of the many ways we pay for the “net zero” religious zealotry that will hurt the poorest the most.
Finally, our friends at the TaxPayers’ Alliance have produced a staggering piece of research that shows that the average household is set to pay over £1.1 million in tax in our lifetime. The poorest households will work 24 years to pay off their tax bill, leaving just 16 years of income for themselves. What will the Tories, as well as Labour, do with our new-found freedom from the European Union? The answer is they will tax, borrow and spend without any meaningful positive impact, as they always do.
We may have taken the radical step of leaving the European Union in order to become more free, but for our establishment politicians it is business as usual and we in the Foundation Party have a journey ahead of us in order to change it.