Over the coming weeks, CapX will be running a number of perspectives on the future of the Conservative Party. If you have an idea you would like to contribute, get in touch at [email protected].
The Conservative and Unionist Party have always been great champions of British businesses, whether small or large. From growing up watching my father work seven days a week running the local shop, I have always believed in the values of hard work and enterprise. They are some of the best principles we have to promote freedom and deliver security and success for our families and our nation.
Britain is at its very best when we support our great entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators. People who take on bold risks to start a new business, just like my parents did when they came here from Uganda in the 1960s, are the wealth creators that our country depends on to create jobs and generate economic growth. For too long, like many other developed countries, Britain has experienced limited and slow rates of growth. To meet the challenges of the future, generate growth and the tax receipts needed to fund public services, the Conservatives must be the Party that promotes economic freedom to boost productivity. We must be a Party that is committed to emboldening our entrepreneurs and unleashing the UK’s great talent to seize on new technology before other countries get ahead.
The UK needs a new Leader of the Opposition to hold Keir Starmer’s big-state, high-tax and anti-business Labour Party to account, and I am best placed to do this. I have always been on the side of our businesses. Whether that’s championing local small and medium sized enterprises in Witham or backing British businesses as one of the leading voices in the campaign to leave the EU, I have always made backing British business a top priority.
As the Prime Minister and Chancellor make dishonest claims about their economic inheritance to cover up their inflation-busting pay rises for trade unions and their grandiose tax plans, the British public deserve an Opposition leader who will hold the Government to account. Having served under William Hague when he was Leader of the Opposition in 1997, I have experienced Opposition and know what it takes to hold the Government to account. I have been clear that it is first about uniting the fractured Conservative Party, but also about empowering a frustrated membership.
British businesses need this urgently. If we do not promote our economic freedoms, no-one else will and Britain will fall backwards. The Chancellor is imposing damaging tax rises on families and businesses which will cripple household finances and stifle economic growth. Angela Rayner’s plans to impose new burdens on businesses under the guise of workers’ rights and the empowering of trade unions to hold the country to ransom will inhibit business from having the vital flexibilities needed to improve productivity, support jobs and create growth.
The growing burden of higher taxes and a growing socialist state will weigh heavily on our economic freedoms and British business. As someone who has borne witness to the impact of the Thatcherite revolution, I know the difference that can be made by unleashing our economic freedoms. That’s why I will stand up and call for low taxes and supporting businesses with less red tape and regulation.
If elected Leader of the Conservative Party, I will ensure we are unashamedly pro-business and pro-growth. I will utilise our position and newfound freedoms outside the European Union to help cut regulation and attract investment with lower taxes. I will seek to emulate Ben Houchen’s success in the North East and generate more growth and more jobs in communities that have felt neglected for too long.
As the new Labour government have already exposed themselves as anti-business, anti-innovation and pro-higher-tax, the UK needs the Conservative Party to come together and be the true backers of British businesses once again. After five years of Starmer, Britain will be sent back 50 years to the 1970s, and business will need to have confidence in the Conservatives to put economic freedoms front and centre of our plans for the future of the country. If elected as Leader of the Conservative Party, backing British businesses and unleashing our economic freedoms and the pathway to boosting growth, productivity and job creation will be one of my top priorities.
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