#smallbusiness – Write to Speak

Imagine Revisited.

A little while back I imagined a positive and negative outcome to this whole Brexit shambles. I was asked to revisit this. I have to be honest I have found this difficult, seeing the intense mistruths being spread by Boris Johnson and his party in this extremely dirty election campaign has made it difficult to feel anything other than dismay and fear. Boris Johnson has run a campaign where he has evaded scrutiny, promised a few crazy things to buy people and threw out the soundbites one after the other and I am fearful that the British public are buying his nonsense. But here are my two scenarios. Let’s look at the bad stuff first.

It’s the 31 December 2020. Boris Johnson got a majority in the general election of 2019. The dirtiest election ever, every trick in the book and then some was employed and thrown at the public during the campaign – fake tweets, fake websites, doubling down on lies by Johnson and his cronies. Johnson kept just bouncing back in the polls like a great yellow beach ball that someone had drawn a vacant face with a smile on, vacant because his manifesto was so vacuous and his soundbites so fake. Sadly arguments between the other party activists got in the way of the campaign for tactical voting which was being promoted by Pro EU activists across the country.

With a majority in parliament, having replaced all his honourable One Nation Tories and Remain MPs with shiny new Super Brexity Tory MPs willing to do absolutely anything because they wanted to get a job in government, the withdrawal agreement was passed. The biggest lie “Get Brexit Done” has proven to be a bit tricky. The free trade agreement with the EU is not in place and as of midnight the country essentially has no more arrangements, on anything except airspace. The transition arrangements end, and the country has paid an absolute fortune in No-deal planning. The Business community are furious and rather wishing they had not fallen for the scaremongering about a minority labour government. Meanwhile talks have been ongoing with the US administration. The control of drug pricing is still on the table though Johnson refuses to admit this. No deal is in sight yet.

The continuing uncertainty has not been good for business. Anxiously watching the news every day at the slow progress of the terms of access to trade with the EU, directors and CEOs everywhere who had not already triggered contingencies last year have taken this transition period to do so. The promised growth has not come. Tax receipts are down so the money tree has wilted and died.

The Tory No-deal Architects are about to get their way. Their hedge fund investments betting against the economy and currency speculations have been very rewarding so they are smiling to themselves when they get up in the morning. They know the next step will be a rowing back of regulation in the labour market in order to try and make us more competitive in a world with no trade deals to speak of. Their plans are coming on nicely.

The pound has been all over the place as, the reality is we are no closer to knowing much about our future relationships with any of the big players. There were some deals rolled over by countries such as the Faroe Islands. Prices have continued to increase. Small Business is worried about the impending difficulty in getting supplies as our trading arrangements have failed to materialise and we are coming to the deadline. Johnson with his majority has made some constitutional changes which are making protest against the government difficult, they introduced legislation to stop governments being taken to court by citizens trying to make constitutional challenges.

Parliament still must talk about Brexit every day. The Russia report was never published by some government sleight of hand and most of the police enquiries into the 2016 referendum have now been kicked into the long grass. EU27 citizens have left in droves to live their lives somewhere they feel welcome.

Some things haven’t changed. There are still people living in tents in shop doorways. There are still food banks. Disabled and sick people are still being badly assessed for PIP. Wages are not going up in line with living costs. The NHS has not been able to address any of its staff shortage problems. The Care System sees no end in sight. The new immigration rules are not helping to get their positions filled from anywhere in the world when migrants can do better elsewhere. The brain drain is still a thing. There were 5 football grounds built in the regions to the trumpeting of Johnson and the viability reports are still being carried out on 6 hospitals.

Racism is still alive and well. The far right now has representation in parliament via a Tory party which had already started its journey to the right long before this point. There are no unicorns here.

The news every night is still about Brexit. Why did we Brexit? What will happen next? How is the government going to solve the no-deal crisis at the end of transition? What about the supply problems? When are we going to see a stronger pound? When is the USA going to give us a deal? How many years of negotiations are ahead of us?

Government ministers fill our screens with the tired Brexit soundbites and keep repeating the mantra that this is the will of the people.

Nobody with any power is talking about climate change any more.

We clink our glasses to see the new year in with heavy hearts and fear about the continuing degradation of our political system which has completely forgotten it’s there to solve our problems not to make them for us.

The political shitshow continues.

It’s all a nightmare, right? Well now don’t just imagine but visualise this instead!

It’s the 31st of December 2020.

On the 12^th December 2019 people finally got the message that they needed to find a path to end Brexit and it wasn’t going to be the shamelessly mendacious Tory plan. Activists from across parties worked together to get rid of Brexiter Candidates across the country. Wherever the constituency looked like it would benefit from Tactical voting, pro EU activists campaigned for the Remain/Peoples Vote candidate who could win, regardless of party. Dominic Grieve won back his seat as an independent.

Labour won but needed to get the cooperation of other parties to be able to form a government. Lib Dems, SNP and Greens all agreed they would work with Labour within a loose alliance arrangement and not a coalition. They allowed Labour to go to the EU. The deal that came back was basically May’s withdrawal agreement with customs union alignment and a form of access to the single market.

Labour kept their promise to have a referendum, their new idea of how to leave versus remain. Parliament agreed the terms of the referendum and we had a very tough and comprehensive nationwide examination and direct comparison of the deal being proposed to leave and our existing EU membership. The forces that tried to steal the votes in 2016 were still there but we were ready for them. Realities were laid bare. False information on both sides was dealt with by broadcasters with proper challenge. Young voters engaged and supported the campaigns. Remain won the argument and the referendum, after some important rules around online campaigning and paid for advertising were imposed. The people of the UK had had enough and wanted Brexit to end so they voted to make it end! They wanted investment in services, and housing and financial growth to be the centre of the political attention once more.

Article 50 was duly revoked. Parliament immediately launched a wide-ranging consultation process trying to determine with communities around the country what initiatives were needed in the regions to improve the lives of all our people.

A few thousand angry people turned up to protest in London after article 50 was revoked whipped up by Farage etc. There were pockets of nastiness, but the numbers weren’t big enough to stop the overwhelming majority of citizens around the country from heaving a huge sigh of relief.

The pound soared back upwards. The FTSE stabilised and strengthened steadily. Companies engaged in plans to invest in the future knowing where we were going. Brexit is no longer on the news every night. Structural problems in various industrial sectors can be viewed and addressed by business with clarity, without the constant white noise of Brexit interfering with their thinking.

There was a huge media feature on homelessness. The Government announced a cross party initiative to address the issues of housing needs in the UK. There is work being done on how to improve economic growth, training and recruitment in the NHS and social care and they are once again busy talking about inequality, equality in the workplace, taxation and foreign policy. Parliament is working actively on all the issues which affect people’s lives.

Our MPs now see more normal post bags and can concentrate on helping their individual constituents more effectively. The feeling of constant division has been removed in our political environment despite a minority government relying on working cross party to operate. There are still some extremely abusive emails, but these are now easy to report and ignore. Politicians report they are also getting many more thoughtful letters on a wide range of issues, as more people have woken up to political engagement and want to communicate with their MPs to make their communities and country better.

Yes, many people were and still are angry and they threaten never to vote again. But as the weeks go on, and people around them are starting to smile again and they don’t hear the word Brexit on the news and new jobs are announced as firms feel able to invest in expansion plans instead of contingency plans, they start to feel secretly relieved too. They laugh at the satirical jokes along with everybody else and they don’t know it yet, but this time next year they will quietly wonder why they voted to leave the EU in the first place.

The racists are still there of course, but the unexpected power that Brexit gave them has been undermined. Their voices are still loud, but their platform is broken. The toxic right of politics is still attracting certain kinds of people whose view of the world is narrow, but as the population ages, just as with the Conservatives, their most fertile and effective audience at the ballot box will decline. We are starting to patch up the damage done to our relationships with the EU27 citizens amongst us who have been treated so appallingly.

The EU is doing work on the climate change crisis. We are proudly playing our part in that with our partners. Via the EU we are also continuing to address the problems of Tax Evasion and money laundering. The Revoke decision has given a new sense of energy and hope to the progressive parties and their voters right across the EU. Politicians are keen to embrace the optimism. The British public are better informed now about what the EU does and are communicating with our MEPS more. MEPS of all parties are now being asked on news programmes whereas previously they were all ignored apart from Nigel Farage.

Life is getting back to normal but a new mass of motivated, politically engaged, intelligent people, experienced in campaigning for change are looking at ways they can support our democratic systems so the entire population is better represented in parliament and populist extremes cannot be foisted on us again. We must remain alert to the continuing dangers of the far right and nationalism across the world.

We clink our glasses to see the new year in with a profound sense of relief and hope. We are optimistic for the future. We see the battles are not over, they never will be, but we understand now that complacency is the biggest enemy and our generation will not make this mistake again. We must no longer look away from our problems home or away but seek to solve them together.

That’s more like it.

Imagine this, visualise this, make it happen. Use your vote wisely on Thursday and make it count. Check your constituency. Tactical Voting may help you deny a Tory majority. We have too much to lose not to try.

polling station iso

Where are you? It’s Time to speak out

Where are you business? Why have so many of you remained silent for so long? I saw an article the other day in Marketing Week complaining about politicians using the language of piracy when it comes to business. It was an excellent article and I wholly agree that politicians depicting business people as “buccaneers” are on a completely different planet to the actual Business community. However I departed company with the message later in the article which was rather more optimistic about how it will go after brexit than I am. It was one of those “it will be alright on the night” type calls. Businesses will prevail and adapt etc etc. I however see no benefits to business in this Daft Brexit Bullshit.

The companies who will survive Brexit and rebuild after being made uncompetitive in our closest marketplaces will be those already doing business outside the EU and the ones with deep pockets and good contacts.

One of the greatest benefits of the SM and CU is that we can sell our wares in Manchester or Munich with very little hassle. Yes of course depending on the industry there are hoops to jump but there are always hoops to jump for anything worth having, But I can assure you, the hoops won’t be magically disappearing any time soon and we will end up with even more bureaucracy. For example our business has had to register for VAT in various EU locations because of our business model. This was an absolute pain in the backside and involved extra costs, but we went to the effort of doing so and now we have our agents in place and month to month all our reporting goes smoothly. This is not going to change if we are a third country. We will still have the same vat reporting and taxation requirements as a minimum and if we were to sell into the US for example, there are several tax reporting requirements to deal with. This is on top of the customs regulations we will have to navigate.

No no no, you are dreaming if you think there is going to be a bonfire of red tape or regulation as a third country. It can only increase along with the costs and probably duties.

Our movement of stock around the EU is currently trouble free, its been easy to manage. The standards we need to exceed are the same in the UK as they are in France or Germany, so no extra layers of complexity there. What this regulatory alignment means is that relatively small firms have been able to access European markets. But what is this government doing? It’s adding friction and barriers to our biggest markets before we have anything in place to replace the resulting reduction in turnover and profit. It is absolutely crazy and can only lead to many companies getting smaller and less competitive in the short and medium term. Rebuilding after a knock takes a long time.

I don’t know why politicians think all this is a jolly idea, but in business if you aren’t growing you are probably shrinking and to reduce our competitiveness in a market of 500 million people on our doorstep is frankly the maddest thing any government has ever done to the UK.

I am tired of MPs bizplaining I am tired of people who have never sold so much as a paperclip to their gran telling me it will be fine. It will not be fine. It will be horrible, truly horrible. Jobs will go up and down the country, businesses will move or close either voluntarily or because they are no longer viable. All this is already happening in drips, a slow ebb which will gradually turn into a steady stream, then a torrent.

If you are a person who believes in preserving independent business and the small business sector, why are you not up in arms? Brexit can only damage these sectors. What we will see is small business swallowed up by a smaller and smaller number of large corporations. The business environment will favour even bigger and even more corporate organisations. The bigger you are, the deeper pockets you have, the more likely you will survive the Brexit disaster which will completely get in the way of SME and small and micro business opportunities.

After the 2008 crash, a niche we were in which had enabled strong growth for several years because it was too small for the big boys to bother with suddenly caught their eye as they scrabbled around to protect their falling revenues and profit elsewhere. Pretty soon our niche was broken for everyone. Margins were trashed, some of our same size competitors driven out by big companies. We had to move on and find new ways to recover margin. After Brexit the same will happen on a bigger scale to many companies around the country. Knock on effects on local companies will become apparent. Smaller players will close the door or sell up if they can. I can see even more family farms, for example, going into large corporations. The independents will be forced out and we will see even greater domination by big business.

For those of us who have spent our working lives fighting to keep our independent businesses in the game, healthy and growing, the mass vandalism coming our way of the small business sector by the Brexit Glitterati is going to be the saddest thing to see!

So where are you? March with us on the 19th October in London. It could be our last chance to send the message we need to test if this is really what we want?

@redalphababe
#peoplesvote #peoplesvotemarch #stopbrexit #smallbusiness #smallbiz #business

A Life in Business, Tomb Raider and Brexit – Revisited

I wrote this in August 2018. Not a great deal has changed. We are still in the EU and long may it continue. For many people it is already too late. businesses have moved. $1 trillion is leaving Britain because of Brexit. I personally know good people who have already lost their jobs and are struggling to get work in the supply chains for the automotive industry. I know people who have sold up or retired because they just can’t face the coming storms. I wrote this to give you some understanding of what it is like to run a small business and updated some information on the numbers of businesses in the UK from the Governments statistics. It’s interesting to note that numbers HAVE dropped since 2017.

I sometimes think a life in business is like playing Tomb Raider. It’s a strange analogy, I know. Having spent more hours than I should have sneaking onto my son’s computer in the noughties there are some similarities so bear with me whilst I try to explain my logic.

When you start, the first couple of levels seem easy. You are well signposted, there are plenty of instructions, there’s lots of information available to guide you and give you some clues about which direction to explore in. You can, if you have been cautious, afford a few false starts before you have fully committed yourself heart and soul into the game ahead. Most importantly, you get a huge buzz out of every problem you solve and feel happy as you work your way up, around and through and over all the obstacles towards your goal.

It’s not long before you get on to the harder levels. There are fewer pointers here. You have an idea of where you want to go but in the words of Oasis, “all the roads we have to walk are winding, and all the lights that lead us there are blinding “. Every new level brings with it unfamiliar territory. The problems are harder to solve, the obstacles trickier. There are sabre toothed tigers and baddies with pistols around the corner threatening to end your game. Along the way you acquire new skills and weapons. You make mistakes you lose a life you try again having learned from your mistakes. But here is where the analogy departs for a while because suddenly your business is your life, it has become almost your entire life and now you are immersed the consequences of the decisions you must make are very real.

I am not an academic or an expert or an economist. All I can offer are my personal thoughts having been a co-director of a small business for 20 years. In fact, I have been involved in small businesses since I left university in the late 80s. During all those years we have seen many things. I have experienced dealing with bailiffs at the door and conversely been in the fortunate position of being able to help when others were at a similar low point. There have been times when we had to sell everything we could to help us through cash flow squeezes or borrowed heavily on credit cards to make month end and times when making money was easy and we have been able to happily reinvest in the business to expand and move it forward. We have had the privilege of building a team of people who do their best for us every day. We have been able to borrow to invest and taken many risks and chances, always calculated but sometimes dicey even so. Some paid off some did not. This is life. We make decisions, some are right, some are wrong, some work out, some not so much. Just as in a computer game though, we only have so many business lives. Unlike Lara, we can’t reboot and replay the game once all our chances have gone.

Here is the thing I have learned. However stable a business is, nearly all companies are really only 3 to 6 months away from annihilation. From time to time paperwork will cross my desk from a liquidator winding up a customer or supplier and I always notice the same thing. The implosion after the crisis point is pretty dramatic and rapid.

There are several reasons why a crisis can occur. Bang – a change in government policy. Slap – a loss of an important contract. Biff – the most profitable product is now out of fashion. Punch – a miscalculation of stock. Crash – a sudden dramatic move in currency exchange rates. Kick – a rise in interest rates when over-borrowed. Zap – a stupid misjudgement on an expansion plan.

This is not an exhaustive list but any of these things can happen to any SME with fatal consequences for their business. The liquidators move in. Suppliers switch to self-protect mode. All the value everyone thought was there ebbs away and dissipates like Lara’s energy bar, as the customer base drifts off to competitors, stock is marked down, customers find reasons not to pay their outstanding bills and the accountants and bankers who make their living out of the dead bones of SMEs take their cut. Long standing contacts distance themselves uncomfortably, embarrassed to admit a superstitious fear that failure could be catching. I look at the updates from these liquidators and I shake my head with sorrow as it could be any of us. I doubt I am the only one who sees it this way.

So you see, the life of a small business is fragile. We plan, we build reserves, we look at the prevailing conditions, the things out of our control, and we try to make sensible decisions, we hedge against our vulnerabilities where we can, we look for opportunities to get ahead and hope they pay off. Here is where I come around in a roundabout way to Brexit. The fragility of SMEs means we are heading for some extremely difficult times with Brexit looming. Remember my list of potential obstacles? Well for a proportion of the 5.7million SMEs and even some of the large businesses, Brexit, any flavour of Brexit on the menu, will mete out a number of those blows simultaneously. The companies affected won’t so much be rolling with the punches as knocked unconscious before they have had a chance to even buy gloves. We could do some contingency planning, we are doing what we can, but when there is a finite amount of time and resource and personnel we need to know roughly what we are planning for otherwise we may as well just buy a lottery ticket.

If you voted Leave, you – yes I do mean each and every one of you – have helped to put my business in harm’s way, but not just mine. A great many SMEs will face existential challenges because of a direct effect on their EU sales, disruption in the supply chain, an increase in their input costs or less directly because of a downturn, which will most definitely come, leading to cuts in their customers spending in the short to medium term. 2 years on and I still have not seen a convincing reason which explains why we are voluntarily following this insane path. There is no benefit to me and mine, my staff or my business and after asking the question multiple times, nobody credible has ever been able to cite a specific example of a benefit to my business or my life.

My partner and I are both from working class backgrounds, we started out with no contacts and no capital but lots of bravado. Over the years we have adapted, diversified and changed our business model to suit changing business environments. We have battled and fought and sought the tenacity we needed to keep ourselves in the game. We have reinvested our profits, taken chances, learned from our errors, some of them bad ones. Some days I look at the uncertainties ahead and the idea of giving up, selling what we can and going away somewhere regardless of the consequences crosses my mind for a moment. But I know we are not quitters and we will fight on, one problem at a time, one obstacle at a time.

For many in business however, Brexit might just become like one of the nightmarish corridors in Tomb Raider Level 20 with the jets of fire, a sword of Damocles and a giant boulder rolling behind. There will be too many obstacles coming together in too short a time to negotiate successfully and no amount of stockpiled medi-packs will get us through to the next level. Don’t be surprised if some players decide to just quietly turn the computer off and take up yoga.