Britain is on “the edge of a crisis” under Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, one of the country’s leading businessmen has warned. Former M&S boss Lord Stuart Rose called for “radical action” to kick start growth.
Lord Rose told Times Radio: “I think we should all be worried about the state of Britain today. Now, I am absolutely an optimist in my life. I’ve been working for over half a century. And today, I sit here and I look at the state of the nation and I say to myself, I believe we’re genuinely at the edge of a crisis. If we don’t take some radical action and take notice of what’s going on, we’re going to find ourselves in a very difficult spot.”
Lord Rose’s intervention comes amid intense speculation of looming tax hikes in the autumn budget at the end of November.
He added: “When the circumstances change, then you have to change your actions. And this government came in and said that it would actually bring growth as its number one priority.
“We have got no growth in the economy. If you have no growth in the economy, you’re not creating any wealth. If you haven’t got any wealth, you can’t put into the nation the services that voters want and voted for. So, we’ve got to change tack.
“There isn’t a direction of travel. There is no travel. We’re not travelling anywhere. We’re actually standing still in a lay-by while we decide what to do. That’s the real problem.
“Britain is stuck here for the next three months waiting with real anxiety to see what will happen about the next level of taxation that will come through, which will burden business and actually will not encourage growth.”
Lord Rose also raised concerns over Labour’s workers’ rights overhaul, which critics have warned is a fresh blow to businesses after the national insurance raid in last October’s budget.
He said: “I worry about why we have to wait three months for a Budget, because it’s abundantly clear that what we need to do is to take action on cutting costs, is to make sure that we stimulate growth.
“We’re now facing the Employment Rights Bill… It will almost certainly go into law, and it will tighten up the relationship, tighten up the ability for people to be able to employ people. And we don’t need that at the moment.
“We laugh at the Europeans, we laugh at the restriction in working practices in Europe, we laugh at the French, but we are in a situation here where we’ve gone from having a very flexible labour force, we’ve had business which is very flexible, and we’re going to make it more difficult. I don’t understand the mentality of that. Why do that now? Why make it harder?”