Reform Party And Giving The People What They Want,
Reform Party And Giving The People What They Want
The way politicians gain power is to make promises. The way they stay in power is to fudge what they promised and to make incremental spending increases.
The challenge is that this cycle has been in play for decades and those incremental spending increases add up.
That is currently in focus because of the large number of people reaching retirement age relative to the number of taxpayers entering the workforce.
The fact this secular cyclical phenomenon has coincided with the aftermath of pandemic spending has added urgency to the search for a solution.
(I used to work with Nigel Farage but I am no longer in regular contact so these views are my own)
The UK Reform Party is making big promises.
Reducing the tax burden on consumers and promoting family formation are laudable goals.
Refusing to talk about the burden of public spending while in opposition is just good politics.
Focusing on the biggest sources of revenue for the UK economy also makes sense. The UK should be promoting drilling in every prospective parcel of the North Sea.
It should be removing barriers to domestic nuclear energy construction. The fact the UK relies on Chinese and French companies to build reactors is a damning indictment of domestic energy policy.
The City of London needs even more support. The burden of regulation imposed following the Global Financial Crisis has been a brake on innovation and income growth. Doing whatever is possible to enhance the City’s competitive edge in the aftermath of Brexit should be a national priority.
There is never a shortage of lobby groups with their hands out for increasing government spending. Enhancing revenue without increasing the burden on consumers will be both a challenge and goal for every future government.
There is a solid opportunity for the Reform Party to gain traction with disaffected voters.
However, when the leader of the Labour Party is making that claim it suggests some politicking is underway.
The Labour Party is fully aware their path to holding power is tenuous. Their most promising route is for Reform to dilute the Conservative vote without fully supplanting it. That would end up handing greater influence to the Labour Party in the first-past-the-post system.
