Founders have better things to do than care about politics. But what if government won’t let them get on with creating the future? We may be about to find out.
This week saw the launch of a new political movement for reviving economic growth in the UK. As previewed on CapX last week (a reminder that you should sign up to our daily briefing to stay ahead of the news), Looking For Growth, also known simply as LFG, wants to build a network to unlock Britain’s potential. Its message to Britain’s decline-managing politicians is simple: let us build. Or, in cruder terms: Let’s F***ing Go!
LFG’s analysis – that Britain is currently trapped in a growth emergency thanks to an inability to get vital projects off the ground – is hardly original. Its allies include all those, including CapX and our colleagues at the Centre for Policy Studies, who see planning reform and unblocking the building of housing and infrastructure as the key to restoring our economic dynamism. To some extent, even Keir Starmer and his Government accept the tenets of Yimbyism and the need to get Britain building again.
The trouble is, it’s all far too slow. Endless consultations and Nimby complaints mean that even those who see the problem haven’t been able to break the deadlock. Today’s news that the UK economy contracted by 0.1% in October was a fresh sign of our continuing stagnation.
Enter LFG, a group of entrepreneurial, can-do innovators, who refuse to put up with this any longer. Their mission is not so much to diagnose the problem and offer solutions, but to apply the necessary pressure to get much-needed change to actually happen. It is headed up by, among others, Dr Lawrence Newport, who succeeded in getting XL Bully dogs banned and is currently also leading the Crush Crime campaign to impose longer sentences on serial offenders.
Newport rallied the enthusiastic crowd of CEOs and entrepreneurs – some of whom had flown in from as far as San Francisco and even Australia to be there – with an example from France, where the restoration of Notre Dame cathedral was completed in just five years thanks to President Macron’s determination to get it done and his willingness to remove any government roadblocks that stood in the project’s way.
The first gauntlet LFG is putting down in the UK is a draft National Priority Infrastructure Bill, to be published in full next week, which is intended to cut through all the red tape holding up the construction of new nuclear power plants, overhead energy transmission cables and data centres. It includes financial incentives (‘patriot payments’) to buy off local Nimbys, and creates generous environmental remediation funds upfront to pre-empt green blockers. It is a deliberate challenge to all Westminster MPs now slow-walking reform: pass this, or tell us what you’ll do instead.
At this week’s launch, you could feel the passion and frustration in the room. It was a snapshot of the UK’s extraordinary potential, just waiting for the opportunity to break loose and make the future happen. The pent-up energy brought to my mind another vital economic lesson that we owe to the French. The term ‘laissez-faire’ was coined in the 1680s, when French finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert asked a merchant what the state could do to promote industry, only to be told, effectively: get out of the way and let us get on with it. In today’s Britain, the message from the enterprising is the same, except for ‘laissez faire’ read ‘let us build’, or, more simply: LFG.
The real difference is that these entrepreneurs are no longer simply asking from the sidelines. CapX has long been a champion of free enterprise, but mainly with an eye to the private sector’s ability to achieve things in the world of business. Now, with Elon Musk promising to slash government waste in the US, and LFG’s activists refusing to take no for an answer on UK growth, we may be about to see what capitalism can do to fix our dysfunctional politics. Bring on the builders.
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