In the first article of this series, published the other day, I explained that the government needs to cut corporation tax to 12.5% and offer 'full expensing' (ie. a 100% tax rebate) on all capital expenditure on new factory buildings and equipment.
The Economist magazine – well-known to favour globalism in all its forms, including EU membership – tried to oppose Brexit by giving the example of the crankshaft in a Mini. Minis are made by BMW and the crankshaft has to cross the Channel three times for various stages of its manufacture before it can be installed in a finished car in the UK. The Economist claimed that manufacturing processes like this are becoming much more onerous post-Brexit, and wants you to believe that this is why we should have voted Remain. Actually, the opposite is the case. This was a very good reason to support Brexit – or at least, a Brexit delivered by a mercantilist, nationalist government which, through tax cuts and investment rebates, would have got BMW to move the entire crankshaft manufacturing process to the UK, in order to increase jobs and production here.
Today I will look at what further help the government needs to offer businesses to grow our economy and make Britain a successful and wealthy country.
State aid for British businesses
When I was asked what the economic benefits of leaving the EU would be, I always replied that we would be finally free to use state aid to British companies to help them grow, compete and become globally successful – something that we were barred from doing while in the EU. But this hasn't happened. Why not? Because we are governed by traitors. Only British governments are so stupid, so weak, so pathetic and so treacherous that they pay homage to 'free trade' rules even when these are not to our advantage. Every other country is governed by patriotic leaders who care about what benefits them. Only the UK is governed by traitors who care about following rules that do not benefit us. The government's position on state aid is completely contradictory. One minute they say it's not an effective use of public money, and then they whine like little children and say it's 'unfair' for countries to subsidise their own companies. But it's only unfair to us because other countries do do it, it is effective, and because we don't do it!
The US, for instance, is very keen on helping their own industries, which explains, in part, why their economy is so much more successful than ours, with the most recent example being the $369 billion package of the (misleadingly named) Inflation Reduction Act to subsidise green investment in America, in addition to the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act to expand the US semiconductor industry. Or take Germany, for instance, where the economic ministry has just drawn up plans to boost start-ups by offering an extra €10 billion of public funding. And the EU is also pursuing its own European Chips Act which includes an exemption from state aid restrictions, and plans for an injection of €3.3 billion of public funds to grow the semiconductor industry on the continent.
EU countries have always engaged in state aid for industry, even though this is restricted by the EU's rules. So why can they do so while we couldn't? Because the rules, and the application of the rules, were always biased against the UK! Don't believe me? Then consider this: the reason Jaguar Land Rover built a giant new factory in Slovakia is because in 2015 the EU allowed the Slovakian government to offer JLR £110 million in state aid – while the UK was barred from matching this! And this, remember, was when the UK was paying billions in payments to the EU, which was being used to subsidise eastern European countries like Slovakia! So they used our money to suck industrial investment out of our country, stealing our factory and over 2,000 jobs. And some people wonder why the UK voted for Brexit! Remainers argue that the EU allowed Slovakia to use state aid sweeteners because it is a poorer country, but the fact is that they regularly authorise even the wealthiest countries, such as France and Germany, to give state aid to their companies.
The US and the EU, as well as China and Taiwan, are also all pushing ahead with massive investment in the vital semiconductor industry which underpins almost every other manufacturing sector. Just look at the huge problems caused to our car industry recently due to the current shortage of microchips. And what is Brexit Britain doing, now that we can devise our own policies and support our own companies? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you are wondering why government state aid is needed here you need to understand that building a semiconductor foundry costs a minimum of £2.5 billion. That's why every government in the world understands that massive state investment and support is necessary. Every government except ours. Here, the government has been trying to come up with a semiconductor strategy for over two years, but has still not been able to do so. I kid you not. While the government has sat on its hands doing nothing the state of our industry has collapsed so much that only 0.3% of global patents in the semiconductor industry last year came from the UK. Every other major economy has implemented policies to boost their semiconductor industry but here we are still thinking about this. This is incompetence elevated to the level of sheer madness. Seriously, has Britain ever had a more useless and stupid government?
The Tory traitors refuse to offer any financial help to British companies that are losing out in the global financial and industrial war being waged against us. That is why, in January, the battery startup Britishvolt, which was building a massive gigafactory in Northumberland, collapsed into bankruptcy. (The assets have now been bought by an Australian company but even if that has more success it will have seriously delayed the British battery industry, possibly fatally). You may, or may not, agree with the government's push for electric cars but if those are the only ones which will be allowed to be sold then – if we are to have a car manufacturing industry – we need a battery industry. And getting a new industry off the ground requires money – lots of it. And that means government support. Instead the UK government wants the industry but is not willing to pay for it.
So far, only Nissan in Sunderland have managed to finance a battery factory in the UK, while across the Channel, the EU, unlike our cretinous and treacherous government, is investing billions of euros in its gigafactories. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Poland and Hungary (as well as non-EU Norway) will soon all have gigafactories up and running, while here in Britain the government refuses to do anything to help us compete. So come 2030, when petrol and diesel cars will be banned in Britain, the EU will have some 40 gigafactories while we will be almost entirely reliant on importing batteries from abroad. But because of their weight, batteries are expensive to transport, meaning they must be sourced locally. And because of their cost, almost every other part of the electric car supply chain will be built around the location of the gigafactories, meaning that very soon we will lose the car manufacturers and their entire supply chain too. This is a recipe for failure and economic disaster.
Or take UK steel production – a foundation industry upon which so many others depend (including our defence companies!). The production of crude steel in Britain has slumped to a 90-year low of six million tonnes - its lowest level since 1932, during the Great Depression. The treacherous Tory government, obsessed by their mentally retarded free market dogma, allowed UK steel producers to be bought up by overseas competitors (from China and India) believing that foreigners are better businessmen than we, the British, are, and would be able to run these companies without needing state aid. But of course this was nonsense. It was Margaret Thatcher who said “you can't buck the market”, and when the market is rigged and foreign countries are all subsidising their industries, if you don't play the game by the same rules you don't stand a chance and are going to lose. Every single time. We need to pay up or lose everything. The government's cretinous refusal to invest in British companies (or at least, British-based ones) is like standing outside a restaurant, looking in at the diners all enjoying their meals, and expecting the waiters to invite you in to dine for free. No, if you want to sit at the table and eat then you have to pay. That is why the next policy the government needs to adopt is one of generous state aids, helping British companies that need to grow or that just need to be tided over a temporary financial difficulty.
The government's refusal to offer state aids has already resulted in a host of companies leaving the UK. Companies such as Arrival, a London-based electric vehicle start-up, which was planning to manufacture 10,000 vans and buses in the UK but has now moved to the US, at a cost of 800 jobs right away and hundreds more in the future, and Johnson Matthey, a British speciality chemicals and sustainable technologies company, which has also moved production to the US. Both companies explicitly mentioned the financial support offered in the US by the Inflation Reduction Act. If the government wants British manufacturing to survive it has to adopt a mercantilist trade policy (ie. one which favours domestic production and exports, and minimises imports).
Sovereign Wealth Fund
I am not suggesting that the government just offer suitcases full of cash to businesses on a no-questions-asked basis. Not at all. I believe the government should form a partnership with British companies, taking a stake and getting a seat on the board, to ensure the investment is well-spent and the company focuses its growth in the UK. The added benefit of this policy is that the government would then get a share of the profits! Essentially what I am proposing is a sovereign wealth fund, (SWF) focused on British businesses.
The easiest way of delivering this policy would be to manage it through the British Business Bank. The BBB is a great asset that is being criminally under-used and starved of funds. It received just £1.6 billion in 2021, and has only £4.1bn of assets which is peanuts in comparison to what is needed and what our competitors invest. Norway's SWF, for instance, has over a trillion pounds worth of assets, France has two SWFs, with a combined value of also over a trillion pounds, and Singapore has three SWFs with a combined value approaching £1.5 trillion! I therefore propose that the UK government set up a British SWF, managed by the BBB, with a fund of £10 billion per year.
Just imagine what £10 billion a year could do, if invested in British businesses, and how quickly this would build up into a really large and valuable fund. And if you have a limited imagination then don't bother trying to imagine: just look at what the KfW bank (which stands for “Credit Institute for Reconstruction”) has done in Germany. The state-owned KfW provides disguised state funding and is the world's largest national development bank. It funnels state aid into German companies to help them become world leaders. We often hear about how fabulous the German “Mittelstand” is (their SMEs - small and medium-sized enterprises). And yes, this is the backbone of the German economy - but it probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for the KfW.
Britain has a multitude of great start-ups and university spin-outs - small companies created by British genius and innovation. But we don't grow these into multi-billion pound companies like Google or Amazon, and one of the main reasons for this is the lack of scale-up funding, which means these small companies usually end up selling out to the big players and moving overseas. But if the government were to invest in these through the BBB we could overcome the funding gap and create our own global companies. Take the British space start-up 'Magdrive', which has designed a plasma-based power system to provide propulsion for satellites. This is about as cutting-edge and high-tech as you can get but unfortunately, while the company plans to retain their R&D in the UK, their manufacturing will move to the US. With government funding this is exactly the sort of company that could be retained in Britain, allowing us to dominate the technology and the industries of the future.
As a budget must always balance (failing to do this was 'Kamikwasi' Kwarteng's fatal error) I would take this £10 billion from the approximately £12 billion per year we currently give away in foreign aid. This spending is, effectively, lost to the British economy; this criminal waste of money must stop. Bear in mind that this is borrowed money. Yes, the government is literally first borrowing money and then just giving it away! This is a genuine form of madness and if an individual was doing this they would be declared to have a mental health disorder, sectioned, and have their financial affairs taken over by the Office of the Public Guardian! This is British money that should be spent in Britain on growing the British economy!
VAT
In the UK there are around 6 million SMEs. These are a vital sector of the economy, employing around 16.5 million people (around 60% of all jobs in the country). Of these, micro-businesses (companies with up to 9 employees), account for 96% of all businesses in the UK. One of the great deterrents to their growth is the fact that as soon as their turnover hits £85,000 they have to register for VAT, increasing their costs and their paperwork – which means that many don't bother and turn down work in order to stay below the threshold. If the government helped this sector to see growth as an opportunity rather than a threat then the entire economy would very rapidly expand. So I am proposing that the threshold for registering for VAT be raised from £85,000 to £200,000.
Buy British
As well as offering state aid for British businesses to help them grow, the government needs to use its enormous spending to help domestic companies. In 2021/22 gross spending on public sector procurement amounted to around a staggering £320 billion! My next policy proposal is therefore that the government change the law to oblige the public sector to direct government purchasing to UK companies.
The Tory traitors are, of course, doing the very opposite, betraying British companies and British workers. There are so many examples I could give, but a few that stand out for their sheer insanity are:
i. The decision to award the post-Brexit contract to make UK passports to the Franco-Dutch company Gemalto in 2018. The previous holder of the contract, London-listed De La Rue, has never fully recovered. We've left the EU but we are now dependent on them for our passports!
ii. Awarding the contract to build three Royal Navy support ships to Navantia, the Spanish state-owned shipbuilder, rather than a British consortium! So British money and British jobs are now going to Cadiz rather than helping our own countrymen, and Britain's defence capabilities are reduced while those of a potential enemy (that regularly threatens the British territory of Gibraltar) are strengthened.
iii. The Metropolitan Police deciding to buy German armoured Audis instead of the British Jaguars they previously used. The cars are used for top ministers who receive “Grade 7” Metropolitan Police protection, which involves a 24/7 bodyguard and the use of special armoured cars. So the government now depend on a foreign company for their own transport security.
iv. And the most recent decision, just the other day, to employ a French company to conduct post-Brexit border checks, instead of the British Wincanton, whose shares have consequently fallen by nearly a quarter, wiping more than £100m from the company’s stock market valuation. Yes, unbelievable though it may seem, we leave the EU and then get them to manage our borders! Madness. Sheer madness.
Or consider the government's obsession with wind power. We are told that we need to generate our electricity with wind turbines as otherwise we will destroy the planet, all human life will end and we will all go to Hell for eternity (or something like that). But the government also tries to trick us by dangling the carrot of being at the forefront of a new technology and 'world leaders' in this industry. Sounds good, doesn't it? Wow - Britain leading the world! Except that the reality is very different. The reality is that because the government refuses to support our own turbine manufacturers the outcome has been that for every pound spent on building offshore wind energy production, only 29p is spent here in Britain. Under the Tories, offshore energy really means offshoring jobs to our foreign rivals. And who actually owns all those turbines and earns money from them? Well, over 82% of all UK offshore wind capacity is foreign-owned, with over 44% of current offshore wind generation under public foreign ownership. By contrast, just 0.03% is owned by UK public entities - less even than the city of Munich (0.85%)! As a result, in 2021, £2.5 billion of energy bills paid by UK customers went to foreign state-owned entities.
So, far from prioritising domestic businesses in public procurement and helping British manufacturers, the UK government is actually favouring foreign companies, based in countries that are our economic enemies. If that doesn't justify calling them TRAITORS then nothing does.
TL;DR
Create a Sovereign Wealth Fund, with an annual budget of £10 billion (taken from the overseas aid budget) to offer state aid to British businesses, in return for a government stake.
Raise the turnover threshold for businesses to register for VAT to £200,000, to turbocharge the UK's SMEs.
Adopt a government 'Buy British' policy to support domestic manufacturers and businesses.
I agree with you 100%. Wales used to be the centre in the UK for microchips. The British government allowed its sale to a company in the Netherlands, who's parent company is in China.
In Cumberland there used to be a wind turbine company which was destroyed by the government allowing them to go to the wall.
I am utterly convinced that the top echelons of our government are hell bent on destroying Britain's infrastructure completely. Don't forget that Sunak and Hunt are fully paid up members of the WEF who have an obsession of world dictation and population manipulation. Prince Philip and Prince Charles have visited the Bunderberger group several times. I am very sorry to say that I do not even trust King Charles III as he is now.