The Great British PAC are launching The Great British Savings Plan, crowdsourcing government policies and tax breaks that will reward and encourage Brits to invest in our economy.
To do so, we need your ideas on what to include. Please go to our Policy Platform and add your ideas here:
Much of today’s political dialectic is, at its heart, a battle between those who want to manage unsustainable problems with short-term fiddles, and those who want to actually solve them, regardless of the short-term disruption. This discourse covers almost everything: Brexit, immigration, tax, welfare, pensions, crime, the NHS and most recently, the bailout of British Steel.
In this sense, Donald Trump has a point – something British voters seem to appreciate. You can argue with his style and communication, but the president is making clear that America cannot subsidise the rest of the world in term of security, trade and aid, by taking on crushing levels of debt. Trump’s message is that all countries must sort their own problems and stand on their own two feet.
Unfortunately, the UK has the same structural problem as the US, but not the mindset to tackle it. Our support for the rest of the world involves accepting a worsening quality of life and taking on unsustainable levels of debt.
After three decades, this model cannot go on. As Trump pushes back, Asian nations will be forced to sell down Western assets to support their domestic economies. Simultaneously, Europe is poised to borrow trillions to fund a new defence pact. Thus, we can no longer outsource our saving.
Nor would we want to, because the problems of our ‘buy now pay later’ model are all too visible. Due to our excessive debt, economic crises are becoming now frequent (GFC, Truss, Reeves), whenever markets lose confidence in our ability to pay. Inevitably, one day a mini-crisis won’t just go away. Then we hit Greek style economic Armageddon, with all the human costs that entails.
Our lack of saving is also visible in our broken infrastructure, housing and disappearing stock market. The UK’s fixed capital investment has been below its G7 peers since 1990. We rank bottom for corporate investment as well. Our tax and spend economy means we simply do not have the capital or the incentives to invest in infrastructure or economic growth.
This has enormous consequences for our sovereignty. As we saw in Rachel Reeves’ mini-crisis, the first thing the Chancellor did was hop to China, cap-in-hand. Because we cannot save for ourselves, those who lend to us – whether it be the EU, China or the globalist consensus – get to call the shots. This goes completely against the purpose of Brexit, and what the public have consistently cried out for – i.e. an independent UK run by those acting in the country’s interests. If we do not want to be a vassal state (think Greece or, Sri Lanka etc), we need our own money.
A Savings culture is not just vital for national sovereignty; it is essential for personal freedom and wellbeing. As a nation and as individuals, money gives us choices. An impoverished and indebted population lacks the agency to solve their own problems. In fact, debt is one of most common causes of mental health problems, including suicides. As Dickens famously wrote in David Copperfield:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
In short, the case for a renewed domestic savings culture is overwhelming. Unfortunately, Reeves seems to be on the wrong track. Government borrowing is exploding upwards. And the chancellor is desperately trying to water down the prudent lending rules we put in place after the financial crisis.
While more debt may provide a short-term sugar-rush, this is not good quality, sustainable growth. Borrowing after all, is just taking from the future (i.e. children and grandchildren) for an easy fix now. That will leave us poorer and more vulnerable to future economic shocks.
To make matters worse, this government have attacked savers with raids from every angle by vindictively targeting investors and pensioners. As a recent Tweet from Rob Moore observed, with our taxes so skewed, it is no surprise wealthy entrepreneurs and responsible savers are fleeing in droves. Dubai vs. U.K taxes: black & white like to like comparison:
- Income tax: Dubai 0%. U.K. 45%
- National insurance: Dubai 0%. U.K. 15%
- VAT: Dubai 5%. U.K. 20%
- Corp tax: Dubai 0% to 9%. U.K. 19% to 25%
- Capital gains tax: Dubai 0%. U.K. 10% to 28%
- Inheritance tax: Dubai 0%. U.K. 40%
- Property tax: Dubai 2%. U.K. 5% to 12%
The persecution of wealth means money generated in the UK is now heading elsewhere. This is literally an existential problem. The Adam Smith model on which western prosperity has been built depends on the reinvestment of profits. Otherwise, as Smith made clear, capitalism does not work.
To be clear, it has not all been Reeves, our savings crisis has been thirty years in the making. Gordon Brown, Balls, Osborne, Sunak and Hunt all played their part. Investing in our great country has become too complex, too punitive, too expensive and the rules too uncertain. Now, look at the state we’re in.
It is imperative for national rejuvenation that we launch a Great British Savings Plan. With the aim of encouraging and rewarding long-term British saving and investing. Now is the moment to become a nation of savers.
This is vital if we are to take advantage of our post-Brexit sovereignty. Indeed, our Brexit freedoms can allow us to build a new low-cost, simplified model designed for savers.
To do that, we need your help. We want your ideas on what a Great British Savings Plan should include. It could be reducing costs and cutting bureaucracy around the investment industry, tax cuts, simplification, merging pensions and ISAs, and anything else you can think of.
Whatever your big idea for the Great British savings plan, Please go to our Policy Platform add your ideas below (by clicking ‘Reply’ at the bottom). The link is here:
All ideas welcome. The more original, the bolder and the simpler, the better. We will be sharing the result with all parties and already have interest from the Conservative Party leadership.
