Keir Starmer’s red tape delusion

Poor old red tape, no one loves it, everybody hates it and yet it will never die.

It is always being slashed, cut, and burned, torn up and hunted down and yet no one ever seems to know where it comes from, what it is for and why it continues to thrive. It is a mystery of the modern world. Or is it?

In what is becoming an embarrassing and very long running trend the PM, Keir Starmer has promised at the new international investment summit that he is going to, once again, cut red tape and “rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment”.

Dear God, not again, give it a break, pull the other one. What the hell is he thinking?

Every government for as long as I can remember has been tearing up and slashing red tape. If it really could unleash a Tiger economy, let growth rip and free the British economy to soar like an eagle, don’t you think it might have happened by now?

Really, it is a joke. If this is the best Starmer can do to kick start the dormant British economy we are doomed.

The simple fact is that we live in a very complicated and therefore regulated world. One man’s red tape is another man’s vital protection. So which regulations would you like to be abolished?

Those covering: road safety, dangerous chemicals, child labour, slavery, food purity, water quality, medicines, racial discrimination, building safety, nuclear power, air quality, or climate change? Not easy is it?

The fact is that not only is most, if not all legislation, there for a good reason, but the actions of numerous governments also keep adding to it because every scandal or problem has to be addressed. People rightly demand action from governments, which are supposed to protect us. Just look at the Post Office Horizon scandal, or the tainted blood scandal, or the Grenfell tragedy. None of these were caused by too much red tape – all of them are likely to create more necessary, tough rules.

But there is one area where the government could slash miles of red tape, unleash the animal spirits of the UK, boost exports and growth and save business billions a year.

We could just re-join the EU or at least the Single Market. Every piece of Brussels red tape is designed to abolish a piece of red tape in every single member state. Leave the EU and you have to reintroduce miles of the stuff.

Just ask any business that exports to the Continent, or imports from it, any truck driver at Dover, any food firm or company that is part of a European supply chain. They are being strangled by the stuff: by the endless new forms, more paperwork, previously unnecessary tests and checks and delays.

But will Sir Keir take a knife to that red tape? Will he heck.

Until this government realises that Brexit is not in the past and has still to be addressed, British business will be held back by miles of red tape, Brexit red tape. Cut that and see us soar.