Rishi’s tax is another blow to battered retail | Keir’s non decision

Rishi’s tax is another blow to battered retail

It is perhaps unsurprising that the term “Global Britain”, coined by those who wish to tear the UK away from the most successful trading bloc in the history of the world, contains contradictions.

The idea faces a fresh blow on January 1, when the VAT Retail Export Scheme for international visitors is set to come to an end.

The Government claims the move will save the Exchequer more than £500 million in VAT. But as we report today, their sums are just wrong.

By making shopping 20 per cent more expensive, it will deter foreign visitors and harm our desperately needed recovery.

The Government has simply not done the work on this, nor fully considered the cost to vast swathes of our economy. Furious retailers say the consultation was hurried and disguised as a digital move.

People who visit the UK do not just come to shop — they stay in hotels, eat in restaurants and enjoy the infinite cultural offers from all around the country.

The very ecosystem taking the hardest battering in London right now from a pandemic and Brexit uncertainty.

This is no time to play politics. For Rishi, this is an “easy” hard choice that will play well for focus groups — let’s hit the foreign Louis Vuitton shopper. Except this tax will hit normal people. Hard.

This decision pre-dates the pandemic. Given that tourists will still not be visiting at all in the New Year, the Chancellor must take this time to reconsider.

Brexit was meant to make us more competitive — yet we just handed a huge advantage to the French. And this decision never would have been needed without Brexit in the first place.

There is a retail bloodbath going on. The Arcadia Group and Debenhams are going under. The sector has lost 125,000 jobs in the first eight months of the year, even before the second lockdown.

This is supposed to be a pro-business Chancellor in a pro-business party. Many of us are asking, seriously, what do the Tories stand for now?

Keir’s non decision

Keir Starmer’s decision to whip Labour MPs to abstain on new Covid tiers makes sense if you remember his political hero.

During the leadership contest, Starmer revealed that his favourite Labour leader is not its most revered — Clement Attlee — nor most successful — Tony Blair. It is wily Harold Wilson.

Not for any particular governing achievement, the abolition of capital punishment or keeping Britain out of the Vietnam War, but because Wilson held the Labour Party together.

It is in this context that Starmer runs his party, caught between newly empowered moderates and Corbyn’s ancien regime.

In abstaining, Labour guarantees that the vote will pass while also drawing out Conservative splits. This may be smart tactics, but whether it is good strategy is open to question.

As Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron helped Blair to win a vote on the renewal of Trident on the back of Conservative support.

Important decisions require you to take a position. Indeed this is not the first time Starmer has whipped his party to abstain on important legislation during this Parliament — see the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill.

Abstaining may work as Parliamentary chicanery, but it is hardly an inspirational pitch for government, where hard choices cannot be swerved quite so easily.