Angela Rayner declares war – secret plan to bring Britain to its knees | Personal Finance | Finance

PM Keir Starmer is doing what he always does. Holds meetings and convenes committees where nothing is decided. Then cravely betrays British interests by hiding behind international laws that everyone else ignores. He’s now posing as an international statesman, when in fact he’s a global laughing stock. Britain can barely muster a destroyer to protect our own military bases, let alone a whole aircraft carrier. He even kowtows to the equally feeble EU. These days Labour only takes one foreign policy goal seriously. That’s stopping Muslim voters drifting to Zack Polanski’s Green Party.

For centuries, Britain was an island fortress. Today, it can’t even stop a dinghy, as the small boats keep coming. Russian submarines have been menacing our vital undersea pipelines for months. Our response? Defence secretary John Healey says: “We see you.” We’re not actually doing anything though. Putin is laughing at us. He knows we’re in no fit state to defend ourselves.

But in one respect, this craven Labour government is willing to go to war. On our own economy, businesses and taxpayers. Chancellor Rachel Reeves has led the charge, hammering the UK with £70billion of taxes and ever more red tape. Growth collapsed even before the Iran crisis, with unemployment hitting a five-year high on her watch.

Now Angela Rayner is opening a second front, with a brutal union-led assault on British business that risks destroying even more jobs than Reeves. And she’s not even in the cabinet.

Rayner’s disastrous Employment Rights Bill means lower pay, fewer jobs and more strikes. It also risks driving youth unemployment to terrifying highs.

Now her new worker’s agency is being handed Stalinist-level powers that go far beyond anything British firms have faced before. These includes sweeping enforcement measures that would allow officials to enter workplaces, demand access to records and pursue action against employers accused of falling foul of complex rules. Then jail wrongdoers.

Smaller firms, already under pressure, face the prospect of surprise inspections and heavy compliance costs. Trade unions are set to gain new rights to access company information and workplaces with minimal notice, in a fresh nightmare for overstretched businesses.

Hospitality and retail will bear the brunt of the assault, driving even more shops, pubs, hotels and restaurants to the wall. And Labour will keep turning the screw.

Incredibly, this push comes while Rayner remains under investigation over claims she dodged a £40,000 stamp duty bill on her luxury second home in Hove. Her defence is that the tax system was too complex to navigate, yet she’s pressing ahead with policies that would heap even more complexity on businesses across the country. Basically, it’s a union power grab, and it couldn’t be worse timed.

Briton used to be one of the best places to do business in the world. Global entrepreneurs would make a beeline for these shores, but no longer. The prospect of a stretch in Wormwood Scrubs certainly won’t entice them back.

Reeves anti-business assault has already jacked up costs and driven unemployment to a five-year high. Ed Miliband’s madcap net zero charge is destroying one firm after another as energy costs soar. Now Rayner’s combined assault will drive it even higher.

Labour won’t stand up to Iran, Russia or China. But it’s happy to blitz the businesses Britain needs to create urgently needed jobs, investment, tax revenues and growth.

Terrifyingly, Red Ange is doing this while out of power. Imagine the damage she could unleash if she gets into No 10.