But tax rises are only the start. Labour is fiscally restrained, so it will be tempted to introduce new red tape, passing on costs to businesses for their hobby horses. We can already see this with the sharp increases in the minimum wage and expansive new labour market regulations.
The major exception is the Government’s proposals for planning and infrastructure, though soaring rhetoric about being builders is yet to be realised.
None of this should be shocking for business. They should have known better than to trust a Left-wing party, which instinctively wants to grow the state and regulate at businesses’ expense.
It is easy enough to forget what an old-fashioned Labour government would do, but all the signs were there in advance: Labour’s manifesto contained 62 policies to increase regulatory burdens on business and just 13 to decrease.
There are also some macro trends at play. Economic policy has generally shifted leftward since the financial crisis, Brexit and Trump, and the pandemic. We are long past the Blair-era third-way politics. Even the last Tory government was more interventionist.
Despite the incompetencies of the British state, there is genuinely less scepticism of interventionism among the public and political leaders. The likes of industrial policy, which seeks to use state power to direct the developmental path of the economy, are back with a new green tinge. The expectation for the state to “protect” people from any real or theoretical harm demands ever more intervention.
In this new era, corporate Britain’s strategy is failing. Business leaders have sought to play along with the Government to get invited to summer cocktail receptions in the No 10 garden and get a printed Christmas card from the Prime Minister.
But they are now discovering that just getting into the room and having “good relations” often means zilch. These meetings are often seemingly just a cynical PR exercise so the government of the day can broadcast how it consulted with businesses and tried to mollify opposition to its policies.
In the end, when the details emerged, the actual victories for business are few and far between.
Now that the new Government has shown its true stripes, businesses will need to show leadership. They are the job creators and innovators who provide the products and services we all want to buy. They should be willing to fight the Government to protect our economy.