An ingenue observer of recent British politics will have struggled, to put it mildly, to identify the Conservatives as the natural home of business.
Indeed, Theresa May’s early brand of Toryism went out of its way to pick a fight with wealth creators before paralysis struck in the dismal aftermath of the 2017 election.
Now the Boris Johnson era is just days away and ostensibly the omens are not good. A “f**k business” Prime Minister? A dogged Heathrow opponent? A do-or-die no-dealer?
To be clear, a no-deal Brexit would cause significant disruption to the UK economy. But among chief executives I’ve spoken to he has one critical selling point: he’s not Jeremy Corbyn.
Ask any FTSE boss and they’d take their chances with no-deal any day over a Marxist nationaliser (“although, of course, we might get both,” said one glumly).
Boris has been throwing around all sorts of sweeties in his campaign. But if he makes good on his hints for business he’ll do more for it than May ever did.
He stuck up for bankers in London when it wasn’t popular and by instinct he’s a classic low-tax Tory: that’s shown by the murmurs on stamp duty, corporation tax and raising investment allowances.
If he needs to let borrowing rise to do it and use up the fiscal headroom, then so be it. In likely Chancellor Sajid Javid, firms will have another sympathetic ear.
Doing an EU deal now looks an incredibly tough ask. But if he doesn’t (more likely), there’s every chance he and Javid would put pro-business measures at the heart of a package to ride out the turbulence to follow.
Corbyn, on the other hand, will be taking UK wealth creators to the cleaners at their lowest ebb.
