𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

As the political conference season marches on, it seems that politics in our country is on a knife edge. No more the totally tribal “teams” of yesteryear, the era of PM Burnham’s imagination is long past and the opinion polls reflect violent swings among the electorate. This is probably not just a reflection of developing party policy announcements and the personal popularity contests of the leaders, but also a constant search by people for their preferred political platform and for politicians who are capable and sufficiently determined to deliver it.

As far as I’m concerned (and I am correct) the policies and pipe-dreams of leaders depend on economic growth and it is this against which I assess the efficacy of policy and of performance in its delivery. In that sense nothing else matters if we don’t have economic growth in the first instance and I have been consistently conveying this sentiment to the various political parties and their leaders on behalf of the Independent Business Network (IBN), which I chair. Interestingly Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives now seem to have grasped it. Hurrah!

We have witnessed the communist lunacy of the Green Party whose policies, such as they are, would drive Britain towards a third-world style banana republic of poverty and a frightening super-woke police state with paradoxical pepperings of anarchy.

The irrelevant, illiberal anti-democrats and their clown of a leader appear to have ignored the possibility of any relevant economic policy and would be looked upon as aliens from another planet by their illustrious forbears Palmerston and Gladstone.

For their part the Labour Party have descended into a quasi-Marxist throwback to the 1970’s when we had an analogous government that was Trade Union-dominated, debt-ridden and inflation-led.

And now Mr Burnham makes plain his plan to gerrymander the electoral system. By aiming at proportional representation he offers to disenfranchise the electorate and replace democracy with a politi of post-electoral dirty deals between parties against the backdrop of European, technocratic dictatorship that operates behind behind closed doors.

The real challenge however is the current split on the right. The Conservatives, Reform and Restore are in real danger of consuming each other in an insane smorgasbord of personal antipathy and tribal rivalry, leaving us poor subjects at the mercy of a nation destroying, left/liberal cult led by eyelash Andy and his Marxist cohort.

Make no mistake, if we get another left-wing government Britain will be finished as an independent nation, poverty-struck by policy and the succubus of the EU. Madness will have descended and Orwell’s horrific vision will have come to pass. Reform, the Conservatives and Mr Lowe will be to blame. All have merits, but without power none can succeed. It matters not who did what and when in the past, however bad (Net Zero) or stupid (Boris-wave).

We must have a government which prioritises economic growth above all else. That means cutting welfare and the size of government. An administration that secures our borders, manages immigration to our advantage. It must take advantage of Brexit not kowtow to the failing EU and the German project. That is prepared to defend the nation. To boost the private sector through deregulation and tax cuts. That is most certainly not the agenda of the current left, the incompetent purveyors of near-Marxist policies, with their leader, the all-too-plausible Bambi Burnham, a snake oil salesman.

The solution? One of these right-thinking parties must prevail decisively above all others. If there is little prospect of this approaching the next general election an arrangement must be struck with good heart and generosity of spirit or, at least, hard-headed calculation and determination. Anything less will be truly unforgivable and a matter of national suicide. It isn’t a game.

John Longworth is an entrepreneur and businessman. He chairs the Independent Network (IBN) of family businesses and is a former MEP