Douglas Carswell on top form.

From City AM:

“They’re on the back foot, momentum is with us, and I think we’re going to win,” Carswell says.

“[The CBI] are not neutral players in this. They tend to favour big corporate lobbying because they are a big corporate lobbying organisation. They produced a poll that even the British Polling Council admitted was questionable,” he adds, using a recent corporate scandal to land another punch on the business group.

“The CBI is to measuring what British business thinks about EU membership what Volkswagen is to carbon emissions tests. They’re methodologically rather suspect.”

Some businesses want to stay in the European Union, Carswell concedes. But that’s because “those businesses – big corporations and banks in particular, but also lobby groups – that have a clear vested interest in a commercial system based on lobbying and the granting of permission, who are going to love the EU.”

“But they are not representative of the broad bulk of business in this country, who can’t afford to rig the rules. I also happen to think there is something unethical about gaining market share by fixing the rules by hiring lobbyists.”

“I believe in the free market, and the corporatist vested interest in Brussels who are rigging the system to their advantage are not helping us be competitive. Competitiveness, like red tape and all problems in the EU, has been a problem all Prime Ministers have said they’ll address, but nothing ever changes.”

Which is what I have been saying for years. The Outers should not be just attacking the EU from 'the right' by focusing on immigration (even though in the light of recent events, that's becoming ever easier), they should be attacking the EU from 'the left' as well.

I was at a UKIP event in London a few years ago, and when it was finished, I told the others that I was off to the Occupy London thing at St Paul's. That took some of them by surprise, but I explained that as far as I was concerned, in some ways, UKIP and the Occupy people are fighting for the same thing, they just don't realise it.

"Pro-Europe CBI poll was rigged, claims ‘no’ lobby"

MBK emailed in this from The Times:

The row centres on the sample used by YouGov, which Vote Leave claims was “wholly unrepresentative” of Britain’s 5.2 million companies.

For example, only 20.5 per cent of the respondents had fewer than 50 employees, despite the fact that 99.2 per cent of British businesses employ fewer than 50 people. Vote Leave also claims that only 22 per cent of the businesses surveyed had a turnover of less than £5 million. The average turnover of private businesses is £673,000.

The CBI is understood to have selected the sample for YouGov from its membership list. In total, 451 of the members selected responded.

All of which seems very likely to me, if you pay attention to these things, you'll find that the larger the corporation, the more pre-EU it is and vice versa. The CBI is the worst of the lot.

Good article about Big Business and the EU

Re my post of yesterday, from today's City AM Forum:

ONE OF the biggest myths in UK politics is that the free-market and Eurosceptic [sic] wings of conservatism are beholden to the interests of big business. Many mistake a shared desire for a lower tax and regulatory burden for a common agenda.

Yet in reality, some of the biggest divergences in economic opinion occur between these two groups. Established businesses often favour state-led "industrial strategies", with "government investment" into "strategically important industries", and expensive state-led infrastructure projects like HS2 – which pro-market types often oppose.

Further, big business tends to be far more sanguine about our relationship with the EU. Large companies with established HR departments can perhaps afford the EU red tape and social legislation that affect small businesses operating at the margins of existence. Large firms are often more interested in the ability to shape laws, protecting the state grants and "support" that help their businesses.

As such, a Single Market with harmonised regulations and a centralised bureaucracy is less unappealing to multinationals. Many of their leaders have been vocally supportive of continued membership. The Confederation of British Industry's (CBI) report on British EU membership must be seen in this context…

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

MHO, the EU was originally a good idea (free movement of people and goods etc) especially when membership was restricted to a dozen or so similarly wealthy west European countries, but over the past twenty years it has changed into a massive horrible bureaucracy which does nothing other than rubber stamp regulations and subsidies on behalf of large businesses and other rent-seekers which act as barriers to entry or growth for small and medium sized businesses but over which larger businesses can easily vault (i.e. corporatism, which is a hybrid of the worst elements of Communism and of capitalism).

So it's interesting to compare and contrast what the various UK business lobbying groups say about the UK and the EU, although they all go along with the general politically correct message that overall it is better for the UK to stay in the EU subject to renegotiation blah blah blah (and none of them seems to have a clear single overall policy).

(And there's a heck of a lot of hairshirt bansturbation emanating from the EU, separate topic.)

1. The lobby group for very large businesses, the Confederation of British Industry is unashamedly pro-EU (and pro-subsidy etc), the only thing they moan about is the Working Time Directive:

The CBI is calling for the debate on Europe to focus on credible options for the UK's future relationship with the EU, warning that half-way house models such as Norway and Switzerland are not the answer.

Ahead of a key debate in the House of Commons on the timing of a potential EU referendum, the CBI is today (Friday) publishing new analysis of Norway's and Switzerland's relationships with the EU and rejects the notion that a similar form of associate membership would work for the UK.

2. The British Chambers of Commerce include more medium sized businesses. They tend to be apolitical but they are a tad more sceptical:

The manufacturing sector is still facing many challenges, but we know from our survey that many firms are enthusiastic, confident, and looking to expand and drive the recovery, as long as there is a supportive environment that fosters enterprise.

The trade figures continue to demonstrate the importance of diversifying our exports outside the EU. While progress is being made, the pace of rebalancing towards net exports is still inadequate.

There is huge untapped potential among British exporters, and the government must do more to help those firms enter new export markets. This will help them to compete on a level-playing field in areas such as trade finance, insurance, and promotion.

3. The Institute of Directors represents more small businesses (and tends to be traditional Conservativism) and so are more sceptical still:

Among the IoD membership there will be a broad range of views on EU membership, reflecting the country at large. For some, the free movement of goods and people within a single market is a triumph of our time. For others, the regulatory and financial burdens of membership raise questions about how well the system works - and for whom it is working.

There will also be many people who view the issue as a simple question of sovereignty. The financial crisis, combined with some very real concerns about the politics of Europe, has presented this country with an opportunity to examine the foundations of our EU membership…

79 per cent of IoD members have some form of business link with the EU, and 60 per cent agreed with the statement that "continued access to the Single Market is important to my organisation". However, there is a broad appetite for deep reform. Members cite home affairs, employment law and corporate governance as areas where powers should be repatriated.

4. The Federation of Small Businesses is unsurprisingly the most negative of all (they would like to turn the regulations on their heads so that they place a larger burden on large businesses while exempting small businesses entirely):

Small businesses are often hampered by EU legislation. The flow of regulation on employment, environmental issues, as well as health and safety can discourage businesses from expanding. It can even contribute to their closure.

Our Action not Words campaign highlighted the administrative burdens facing small businesses. We have long called for Europe to 'Think Small First' and consider exemptions, special measures and lighter regimes for micro businesses.

5. I'm not sure how big or small the member firms of the Engineering Employer's Federation are (probably a fair mixture of both) but they are always reliably and surprisingly left wing (some of the stuff they come out with makes them sound like a trade union):

As we once again debate the UK's future within the European Union, EEF has been consulting with manufacturers – across all sectors, sizes and regions across the UK – on their views. And what we have concluded is that manufacturing support for continued membership remains strong.

While there is much that could be improved, the benefits that the EU offers in terms of access to markets, efforts to level the playing field, free movement of people, access to partners and funding for greater levels of innovation are all important.

"Heavily subsidised private sector enterprise essential to ending recession says exasperated CBI Chief"

Spotted by Bob E in The Guardian:

Bewildered CBI chief John Cridland today bemoaned how the government's austerity programme is going too far too fast by creating severe bottle-necks in the usual orderly transfer of public funds to private industry and warns Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne that their flagship private sector jobs for former public sector workers programme is at risk because of lack of government funds coming forward to private sector to meet the costs of running it.

"We in the CBI are fully behind the austerity measures in principle" he said, adding "the principle being that the austerity measures shouldn' affect the flow of public money into our coffers.

"We for our part continue to fully endorse the line expounded by successive governments as explained to them by us that private industry is always much more cost effective than the public sector.  Which is why we deserve increasing, not decreasing, amounts of public sector funding. 

"The more public funding that we receive, directly in the form of being gifted control of publicly developed assets under privatisation measures, or simply hard cash in the form of grants, enterprise allowances or contracts etc. or indirectly in the form of additional taxpayer subsidies like working tax credits which allow us to hold down wages, the better off the taxpayer is, that is a well established fact. 

"And our members are all large taxpaying corporations - so the more money we get, the more money the government gets. But this government risks flying in the face of these facts and unless it quickly comes to its senses and removes the bottle-necks that are stifling the flow of taxpayer funds our way or arranges means by which we can access other sources of funding at negative interest rates and under taxpayer underwritten risk arrangements, well, our member's natural entrepreneurship will continue to be stifled.  And that wouldn't be good for CBI members and so won't be good for anyone. 

"Give us the money. You know it makes sense."

He's practising for his Oscar acceptance speech

The head of the Confederation of British Industry has announced he's retiring next year:

"Now is the right time in the political and economic cycle for me to hand over to a new director general," he said, adding that new government policies would bring fresh challenges for the organisation, "The economy is moving into a new phase, in which business and trade will be the essential engines of recovery."

What a pretentious twat. But if you want really pretentious:

The CBI has yet to announce Mr Lambert's replacement, but the lobby group said it had appointed headhunters Saxton Bampfylde to begin the search.

Martin Broughton rocks!

From his CBI speech yesterday, attended by The Goblin King:

[The Goblin King] was given a rough ride by Martin Broughton, CBI president, who claimed the [fifty per cent] tax rate had been introduced to divert attention from the government's "failure" to control its ballooning budget deficit. The British Airways chairman said the additional tax take was likely to be minimal but its effect would be to send a dispiriting message to wealth creators.

As Mr Brown listened, Mr Broughton challenged the government to review its spending priorities and focus on its core activities to bring down the budget deficit. If business were responsible for the deficit it would reform public sector pensions, tackle the "mismanagement" of services and discontinue non-core activities, he said.

"In the government's position, we would start educating the public to accept that it is not the government's role to address every issue in society," Mr Broughton said. He added: "How many of the 1,000 quangos costing £65bn a year do we really need?"

"The use of heroic growth assumptions, together with a timetable extended to 2018, amounted to a serious failure to address the deficit in a way that gives confidence to buyers of our debt."

OK, Martin Broughton is Chairman of British Airways, who are guilty of plenty of skullduggery themselves, but wouldn't it be nice to hear some plain speaking like this from Camerosborne?

Reader's letter of the day

From The FT:

Sir, I see Richard Lambert, director-general of the CBI employers’ organisation, insists that taxpayers should bail out ailing companies (Taxpayers must plug the big companies’ credit gap, January 16). The questions I want to ask him are:

* Is he in any way related to the same CBI whose members never tire of complaining about high tax rates?

* Who, if anybody, should bail out the small- and medium-sized companies?

Dipak Ghosh, Economics Department, Stirling University, Stirling, UK.