I won't take lessons in economics from clueless Labour

Telegraph

5 hours ago

Reform believes Britain can once again be a prosperous and powerful country. Unlike the entire political establishment, which has resigned itself to managed decline, we know a remarkable recovery is tough, but possible.
The path to getting there requires halting the unprecedented exodus of the country's biggest taxpayers from the country, and indeed persuading more to come here. To create jobs, wealth and apply their broad shoulders to the tax burden.
It also requires repairing the social contract. For too long those who set their alarm clocks and go to work have been getting a raw deal.
Decades of foolish policy from witless and gutless politicians has resulted in tens of thousands of the wealthiest people in Britain fleeing the country. According to the Adam Smith Institute, this will cost £115 billion of growth over the next decade, and tens of billions in lost tax revenue.
So, we announced a new policy yesterday, introducing the Britannia Card. We will make the UK attractive to the world's wealthiest people. But they must pay a £250,000 landing fee for the privilege of being here. All of those fees will be pooled and distributed directly to the 2.5 million lowest paid full-time workers in the country.
This will make us competitive on the global stage, the entrepreneurs and wealth creators we want will make the UK their home. While they won't pay tax on foreign assets, they will, beyond the landing fee, still pay an average of £120,000 per year in direct taxation on UK earnings, and much more in VAT, Stamp Duty and (via their companies) Corporation Tax.
Based on conservative assumptions of uptake of the card, the lowest paid full-time workers will receive a tax free annual payment of £600 to £1000.
The rest of the country will benefit from the billions more these international job creators will pay in tax, beyond the landing fee.
The economy benefits because those 'Britannia dividends' paid to workers will be spent in local cafes, high streets and cinemas. Those who earn the least have the highest propensity to spend.
Nigel Farage is the first political leader in decades to have the courage and wisdom to say that Britain needs the wealthy to have any chance of getting out of the deep fiscal hole it's in. Non-doms have been vilified, firstly by Tories and now by Labour. According to Bloomberg, they represent 0.1 per cent of the population and pay 1 per cent of the tax. They're literally the last people you'd want to chase away if you cared about our country.
The announcement was met by comical howls from the Tories. The clowns who managed in fourteen years the astonishing feat of hiking the tax burden on working people to the highest level in 70 years, tripling the national debt to £40,000 per person, and leaving public services on the brink of collapse. All at the same time. They have been appropriately rewarded for this with electoral oblivion.
Labour, meanwhile, claim our policy will 'cost the treasury money'. Wrong. Reeves is the genius who hiked the Capital Gains Tax rate in her Budget, and – along with the woeful OBR – claimed it would raise billions in extra taxes. We now know the opposite has happened. It cost the exchequer billions, and she's borrowing that money as a result. She will then soak everyone else with higher taxes to make up for her incompetence. The same thing is happening with the non-dom policy. The OBR said that scrapping it would raise billions, but assumed that just 1.5 per cent of the non-dom population would leave each year. Just 10 months in and 10 per cent have left already. Once that hits 25 per cent (which it will in short order), revenue for the taxpayer will decline. That's why the Treasury are sounding the alarm, and she will almost certainly U-turn.
I started a tech company from scratch, grew it to tens of millions in revenue and sold it for hundreds of millions. I know what it means to take risk, the sacrifice required to create wealth, and I know how people in that situation think. Not a single member of the Labour cabinet has started a business, or had a consequential job in the private sector. That's why they keep announcing policies straight from the student union.
Time is running out. We need competence back in Westminster. It won't be easy, and we will need more than one term to do it. But make no mistake, Reform will restore this country to prosperity.