A consultancy boss friend admits to having been impressed. A longtime Tory voter, he was prepared to be sceptical and dismissive when Nigel Farage dropped by. But, instead, he says he found himself nodding along in agreement with the Reform UK leader. He still has reservations — regarding Brexit, the practicalities of some of Reform’s policies, the focus on immigration and some of the more outlandish claims, the party’s lack of depth, its ability to execute its promises and Farage’s own history and character. That’s quite a list but nevertheless, he says, he still came away feeling more positive than he thought possible.
It is the same when I speak to a City chief executive, who says Reform’s shadow business secretary had also been convincing when he came to visit. When quizzed further, they both give similar answers. Farage and Tice each spoke their language. It wasn’t just their no-nonsense directness that went down well, it was their manner. They were comfortable, as you would expect from two men who have previously worked in business, in the City and commerce. They spoke the language of the golf club bar — sorry, the boardroom — and it was well received.
As London prepares to vote in the local elections on May 7, a key factor is emerging, which is the ability of Reform to woo the private sector, to canvass industry leaders and receive a positive hearing. In some cases, that has already translated into direct, tangible support — Reform has amassed a war chest of private donations that is the envy of the rest. It may, just may, prove a key factor in determining the outcome of the ballot and from there the next national election.
Reform is the only party to be led by someone schooled in business — Farage was a City commodities trader, while Tice is a successful entrepreneur — and it has slipped easily into a space vacated by its two main rivals.
The days when one political organisation was out on its own, claiming — with some justification — to be the “party of business” are over. However hard she tries, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is struggling to convince the business audiences she meets that her party really is for them. It’s not her fault; it’s more that she inherited a weak hand, following years of roller-coaster lurching from one calamity to another.
Kemi Badenoch is struggling to convince business audiences
AFP via Getty Images
Business cannot abide uncertainty. It wants to know what the future might hold, it needs to plan, to commit, to invest. Boris Johnson — and especially Liz Truss — delivered chaos. Strangely, it was not so much Truss’s policies that undid her with the City and industry, but the manner of their imposition — the markets were unsettled by the fact they were unfunded and came in a rush.
Under Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, Labour appears to have undone the strident efforts it made to secure the business vote in the run-up to the last general election. Reeves’s first Budget blew that strategy apart, hitting firms with a shock national insurance rise. Since then, the party has been unable to undo the damage — if anything it has been heightened, with the new workers’ rights legislation and the feeling Labour will always put employees and the unions ahead of bosses and owners.
Reform has spent many hours over the past few months attempting to persuade business it is the party for them. One tactic it has deployed is to bring corporate chiefs into the process of policy formulation, inviting them to make written submissions of no more than three pages outlining their wishlists for a Reform government.
Both sides stand to benefit. Reform, from being seen as serious and stealing the Tories’ clothes; businesses, from getting their ideas and desires high on the Reform agenda. Reform has said it has no problem with up to 50 per cent of its Cabinet positions being filled by people from industry. It is keen to get alongside tech and crypto (playing to its role as an anti-establishment disruptor), more open to lobbying and willing to engage with business — something the other two main parties, having been scarred in the past, are more wary about.
Indeed, one of the complaints of business in relation to the Starmer administration is that, having talked the talk before the general election, once in power, they instead hit business for six with the NI increase and other measures. But as well as all that, the shutters came down. Business leaders say they find it extremely difficult to get an audience with a Labour minister and, even when they do, they sense the minister is there under sufferance and going through the motions.
One chief executive told me how he and his team put together what they thought was a well-reasoned infrastructure proposal, presented it and then had to wait an age for a response — only for it to be refused. What annoyed them, he said, was the length of the delay and that the arguments for not going ahead “smacked of policy-wonkery rather than sound logic”, as he put it. He added: “It was as if they cast around for reasons why it could not happen rather than why it could.”
Tice has said Reform’s consultation with business has shown their priorities should be tackling taxation (too high) and regulation (too much). “Smart regulation, safe regulation, we all want that; what we don’t want is daft regulation that adds to costs, adds to inflation, and restricts growth and investment,” he says.
Labour and the Tories, afraid of Reform setting the pace, are not averse to copying the party’s ideas and claiming them for their own. If Farage does have a triumphant local election and the drumbeat in his favour gets louder, then expect to see more plagiarism of Reform-tinted policies.
Where the main parties currently stand on business
The focus is presently on economic stability (the mantra of “further and faster growth” has slipped somewhat and is now not referenced anything like as frequently as it was) and partnership with business (hard to re-establish when that relationship was so badly fractured). Labour is committed to reforming the hated business rates system (not easy). Shaking up the convoluted apprenticeship levy is popular, but against that is Labour’s obsession with affording workers greater protection.
The party is focusing on reducing regulation and taxation (sounds familiar?) and promoting entrepreneurship. Like Reform, the party is vowing to repeal “unnecessary” laws (some of which are from the EU, a move that would go some way towards alleviating the anger still felt in business over Brexit).
Sir Ed Davey’s party has missed an open goal where business and the EU is concerned and has not done anything like enough to further ties with the free trade bloc, or to position itself as “getting” Europe and understanding why business was so furious at the withdrawal. Late in the day, it is making inroads in this direction. It has more credibility than Reform — as well as the Tories and fence-sitting Labour.
It is advocating lower corporation tax, deregulation (promising the scrapping of “thousands of laws”; we shall see), reducing business rates for SMEs on the high street and ditching the “net zero” energy targets reviled by much of business.
Popular with Gen Zs, so viewed seriously by brand managers and more progressive employers, but in terms of likely manifesto pledges, it is unlikely to receive loud business applause. A mooted wealth tax on assets worth more than £10 million will not please wealth creators, which is how those at the top of commerce like to see themselves, nor will another jump upwards in the minimum wage and a four-day working week.