The one thing Reform MPs really care about

Rupert Lowe, the Reform MP for Great Yarmouth, has taken to the pages of the Conservative Woman blog, to attack what he calls the Labour government’s “economic ignorance,” combined with “a failure to grasp the basic demands of economic growth”.

“The current generation are staggeringly ill-informed,” writes Lowe. “The Blairite years successfully obstructed any economic growth and progress with swathes of unnecessary legislation.”

The only “economic ignorance” on show here comes from Lowe himself. GDP growth in 1997, the year Blair came to power, was a thumping 4.92%. The economic low-point of Blair era growth was 1.79%, a 2002 rate that looks vigorous when set against current levels.

There is, Lowe complains, a “lack of suitability or any business experience of anyone in the Labour Party”. Unlike Lowe, of course, who is brimming with business expertise and insight – and here, things start to get revealing.

“State regulation has succeeded in asphyxiating our capital market,” he writes, before launching into a tirade about “the Financial Services and Markets Act, and its EU cousin, Mifid (the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)”.

“EU regulation,” writes Lowe, warming to his theme, “has persistently endeavoured to obstruct equity markets,” meaning that “our main capital market tradition” has been “crippled… by EU regulation”.

This is nonsense. The greatest damage done to the UK’s financial sector has been done first by the crisis of 2008, which arose from weak, light-touch regulation, and then by Brexit, for which Lowe enthusiastically campaigned.

But aside from this, it is telling that when talking about “business” and “growth” Lowe instinctively jumps to the subject of financial regulation. Because it highlights the uncomfortable truth about the Brexit tribe: they are all city boys.

Lowe, for example, worked at Morgan Grenfell, Deutsche Bank and Barings. Nigel Farage, Lowe’s boss, worked as a trader for the brokerage firm Drexel Burnham Lambert. His fellow Reform MP Richard Tice is still to be found in the “Team” section of Quidnet Capital Partners, the property investment firm. James McMurdock, the Reform MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, worked for Barclays Capital.

And the list goes on: Brexit “hard man” Steve Baker worked at Lehman Brothers; Jacob Rees Mogg was a hedge fund manager; the Brexit donor Crispin Odey is also a hedge fund manager; Douglas Carswell worked for an investment manager; Stuart Wheeler, the long-time Ukip backer, owned a financial spread betting company, and on and on…

The Brexit tribe is dominated by financiers – the pin-striped goofs who also delivered the 2008 financial crisis, from which Britain has never recovered. So remember: when a Reform MP says “business” he means “finance”, and when he talks about “growth”, chances are he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.