James Dyson: Labour is killing aspiration in UK
Britain’s “myopic” civil servants, politicians and judges are squashing aspiration, according to billionaire entrepreneur Sir James Dyson in a scathing attack on the current Labour government.
Writing in a column in The Sun, the UK’s third richest person said that he worries that Britain “no longer has the aspiration to create the Dysons of the future.”
In a warning to the government that it risks alienating entrepreneurs and wealth creators, Dyson said: “Those who are starting new businesses are doing so elsewhere. They have decided it’s just not worth doing it here.”
“Chancellor Rachel Reeves will learn this to her cost in the years ahead, as wealth creators leave and businesses stop hiring and investing.”
He pointed out that “it’s not just millionaires that are upping sticks.”
Dyson said: “It took me 5,127 prototypes, each made by hand. I was on the brink of bankruptcy before I found success.”
The entrepreneur also slammed the government’s policy of imposing VAT on private school fees: “What message does a 20 per cent tax on private school fees send to parents?”
“That if you work hard to give your children the best possible start in life, you will be clobbered for it. This is how aspiration drains away.”
“Those who aspire to create wealth and jobs, and those who grow our food, will all be punished. They hate those who set out to try, with hostility,” he added.
Reeves vs wealth?
Dyson emphasised: “The roots of this go deeper than the last 12 months — but Labour has gleefully poured fuel on the fire since the election.”
He compared Labour’s hiking up of business rates to the previous Conservative government’s cuts to Corporation Tax: “Businesses grew faster, and the country received even more tax.”
In January, Dyson said that British family businesses were being “fleeced” by the Chancellor’s Budget tax raids.
He said that hikes to Inheritance Tax were “killing the geese that lay the golden eggs”.
This fresh intervention has come amid a wave of high net worth individuals publicly ditching the UK, particularly non-doms.
CityAM reported this morning that Magda Wierzycka, who set up the venture capital fund Braavos, has been intending to leave the UK – but would stay if the government reverses changes to inheritance tax (IHT) rules brought in in April.