In Brussels Blitz or £500bn Dividend Fred Harrison and Ian Kirkwood discuss how post-Brexit Britain could flourish as never before.
For 300 years the four nations of the United Kingdom laboured under a tax regime which imposed an artificial ceiling on ceiling on productivity. Those taxes continue to create havoc in people’s lives.
The only viable strategy for the UK is a fiscal reform-led programme that organically restructures the economy to replace rent-seeking with value-adding enterprise. This would re-balance relationships between the regions by eliminating the bias that now favours London. And it would transform the City of London to secure prosperity across the kingdom.
A national conversation is needed to create the democratic mandate that authorises the re-design of the public’s finances. And the leaders of all political parties must agree to work together to eliminate the internal barriers that rupture people’s health and wealth.
The annual damage caused by the tax regime amounts to at least £500bn. The palliative policies that are supposed to mitigate that damage have failed.
Twice in the 20th century the people of Britain mandated the structural reform of their finances. Twice the law was enacted. Twice, Parliament failed to honour the “rule of law”. Will Parliament now grasp the opportunity offered by Brexit to unite the nation in a new kind of prosperity?