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Farage says small business owners who thought Brexit would cut regulation have been betrayed because opposite happenedFarage says small business owners thought that Brexit would cut the regulatory burden they were facing. But that did not happen, he says.
The other great betrayal is that is every one of these millions of businesses, every one of these 5.6 million businesses, believed that, with Brexit, the regulatory burden on their shoulders would become less.
I can tell you, a decade on, almost from the referendum, in every single industry, from financial services to fisheries, the burden of regulation and the threat of the regulator is worse now than it was then.
ShareKey eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureQ: What else did you talk about in your conversation with Trump?Farage said they talked about the British political scene. He says he will not talk about some of what was said, but he said Trump said the UK should be drilling for more oil and gas. He said Trump said UK police was “self-destructive”, and he added: “And I agree with him 100%.”ShareQ: Will you get an organisation like the Institute for Fiscal Studies to cost your manifesto?Farage said Reform UK would have a costed manifesto. But he said he did not think they would trust the IFS to do it.ShareQ: Your comments (see 11.32am) could be intrepreted today as an attack on big business. Are you worried that could discourage investment?Farage said he was very happy for big business to invest in the UK.
I’m not anti-big business. I’m just anti-big business having such a say over government policy that small business doesn’t get a look in.
And, believe me, small business has not had a look in for years and years and years. It has become the most neglected sector of the British economy.
ShareFarage says VAT threshold for businesses ‘far too low’Q: What policies have you got for small busineses?Farage said today was just the start. They would develop policy over time, he said. But he said he thought the VAT threshold (the turnover at which firms have to register for VAT) was “far too low”.When it was put to him that some economists say the threshold should be lower (because at the moment it is at a point where it disincentivises some firms from growing), Farage said the threshold should be “significantly higher”.
There are so many businesses, there are so many one and two-man bands who find themselves literally on that cusp [for VAT registration]. They’re literally on that cusp. And that’s why the argument for increasing the threshold makes sense.
ShareQ: Would Reform UK stop ministers taking hospitality from business?Farage said there was nothing wrong with accepting a cup of tea. The important thing was to ensure that hospitality was declared, he said.ShareQ: Is Reform UK anti-worker?Farage said he objected to the idea that businesses were anti-worker.
Let me tell you something. Most people that run family businesses treat their staff as well as they treat their own families.
ShareFarage says BBC’s Panorama edit was ‘election interference’, and Trump reacted ‘not in quotable form’Q: Are you concerned about Donald Trump intervening in the debate about the future of the BBC?Farage replied:
If I was the president of the United States of America, if I was the person making sure that the United Kingdom had security guarantees that meant that it could be defended, – whereas on its own it would be helpless – and I’d been stitched up on the eve of a national election …
People talk about election interference. What the BBC did was election interference.
If you put yourself in Donald Trump’s shoes, I think you’ll understand why, when I had a chat with him on Friday, he made his feelings on the subject known to me in no uncertain terms and not in a quotable form.
ShareQ: Are you worried about the impact on British culture if the BBC becomes weaker?Farage claimed the problem with the BBC was “they’re not reflecting the country we’re living in”.ShareQ: Who do you think should be the new director general of the BBC?Farage said the problem with the BBC was that it employed people from a narrow section of society, with a particular worldview.He said the new DG should be “someone dynamic, someone from the private sector, but somebody with a history of turning around cultures”.ShareFarage says Trump complained to him about BBC in conversation they had on FridayFarage is now taking questions.Q: What do you think needs to change at the BBC?Farage says the BBC has been “institutionally biased for decades”.He says he spoke to Donald Trump on Friday.
He just said to me, is this how you treat your best ally?
It’s quite a powerful comment, isn’t it? It’s quite a powerful comment. So there’s been too much going for too long.
Farage says last year half a million people stopped paying the licence fee. He says, if the culture there does not change, millions more people could start doing thisHe say he would like to see the BBC “slimmed down”.
When it comes to entertainment, when it comes to sport and many other areas like that, they should compete against everybody else [with] a subscription model. That’s the modern world that we live in.
So the licence fee, as currently is, cannot survive. It is wholly unsustainable.
Farage says he is not saying he does not want the BBC to survive. The BBC World Service is “very important”, he says. He says it should just focus on doing “straight news”.ShareFarage thanks Lord Bamford for JCB’s £200,000 donation to Reform UKFarage thanked Lord Bamford from JCB for the £200,000 that the firm has given to Reform UK.The firm has also given the same amount to the Tories. At the weekend JCB said:
Both the Conservative party and Reform UK believe in small business and it’s for that reason JCB has donated £200,000 to each in recent weeks.
In the past Bamford has been exclusively a Conservative supporter.ShareFarage introduced his first guest, Kevin Byrne, who founded the Checkatrade website.Byrne claimed the lack of support that small business owners had had from this government, and from the previous government, was “absolutely staggering”.He claimed that the US economy was succeeding because it celebrated entrepreneurs. But the situation in the UK for small business was “madness”, he claimed.Kevin Byrne speaking at Reform UK event Photograph: Reform UKShare
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