November 13, 2017 9.09 am This story is over 76 months old

Barry Turner: A clean sweep past Brexit – A billionaire’s vision of a Britain outside of the EU

Yesterday on the Andrew Marr show we were treated to a fascinating glimpse of post Brexit entrepreneurship in Britain by the feted vacuum cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson. Sir James campaigned enthusiastically during the Brexit campaign to free Britain from the European Union and has now set out his personal vision of what that freedom…

Yesterday on the Andrew Marr show we were treated to a fascinating glimpse of post Brexit entrepreneurship in Britain by the feted vacuum cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson.

Sir James campaigned enthusiastically during the Brexit campaign to free Britain from the European Union and has now set out his personal vision of what that freedom would entail.

Apart from the notion that we should simply walk away from the Brexit negotiations leaving Britain in a trading limbo, Sir James envisages a United Kingdom with no corporation tax and its employers free to hire and fire at will, the latter being casually described as “flexibility”.

Corporation tax, taxing profits he declared was not sensible. The money should be ‘reinvested’, presumably in outsourcing production to Malaysia. Marr, whose show is on the arch remoaner BBC riddled with liberal elites and lefties seemed quite happy with such suggestions and at no point challenged the ‘king of the upright’ on his views.

To date Sir James has demonstrated his patriotism by directing as much of his production to the Far East where presumably the ‘flexibility’ of the workforce suits his vision for free enterprise and entrepreneurship better.

He must be terribly disappointed that the Brexiteers are guaranteeing EU style employment rights even after Brexit or perhaps he knows something we don’t yet.

Sir James waxed lyrical about how Dyson had already “gone over the cliff edge” and how wonderfully easy it was to apply World Trade Organisation rules.

He went on to suggest that we could subsidise our car industry with billons of pounds although he clearly did not intend that to be obtained by taxing his business. Undoubtedly that money will need to come from the post Brexit employees’ income tax during the periods in which they are in work between layoffs.

Of course Sir James is not in the government and in spite of the frequently sycophantic media coverage he receives is not a big influence on politics but his pronouncement should be a cause of some alarm.

His business may very well be able to survive the fall from the cliff that a no Brexit deal will bring, very many will not. Many business do not have the luxury of outsourcing to workforces in ultra low paid economies.

Very many businesses would be horrified at the prospect of the UK “walking away” from those who will remain our biggest trading partners even when we have left the EU.

To be fair, Sir James was only representing the very narrow view of a geek tycoon who like the liberal elites of Silicon Valley know virtually nothing about the real world.

Andrew Marr however is a seasoned political journalist who is supposed to know better. That he sat there without challenging such radical views and pandered to Dyson’s Trump like vanity and vision should concern us all.

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Barry Turner is a Senior Lecturer in War Reporting and Human Rights and a member of the Royal United Services Institute.