The BNP want to bring back all British industry back under British ownership (source) and raise new taxes on companies that make use of outsourced labour (source).
The BNP believe that foreigner companies and workers are a threat to the British economy, undercutting our wages and putting our workers out of job. Without foreign competition, the BNP believe, the white working classes would still have well paid, secure jobs.
It’s easy to blame foreigners for any problems with British economy, and the BNP are past masters at xenophobic scapegoating. Whenever British companies are bought or jobs outsourced, it’s easy to fall back on reactionary nostalgia, but the truth is that the outside world is far more an opportunity for Britain than a threat:
- There isn’t a fixed number of jobs. It’s an economic fallacy to believe that there’s a set list of jobs in an economy, a zero sum game where every job gained is another lost. When technology removes one job in an economy, we (eventually) find something else useful for that person to do. We no longer need chimney sweepers in our economy, but that doesn’t mean there’s a load of unemployed chimney sweeps hanging around the job centre. Outsourcing is just another source of technology, a way of getting more done with less resources.
- Outsourcing allows us to be more efficient. Outsourcing basic tasks allows us to focus on where our comparative advantage lies. The BNP understand that themselves: they could have hand coded a website for their party, but instead they used a standard Wordpress install (started by a Texan). Doing so allows them to spend more time on their comparative advantage, promulgating ludicrous nationalist propaganda.
- Buying back foreign companies would bankrupt Britain. The BNP’s last general election manifesto claimed that “since we are not egalitarian socialists, it is not our intention to run around expropriating existing businesses”. But if we put this together with the idea that all “British industry [should be] back under British ownership” then it seems their only option is to buy out all the foreign investment in Britain. The cost of this would be enormous, easily in the hundreds of billions, and far beyond what the Treasury can afford.
- A tax on outsourcing would send many companies bust. If the companies can’t afford to pay British wages, slapping an extra tax on them wouldn’t help. The end result is likely to either be their shutting down altogether, or moving the company headquarters to a different country, beyond where a BNP exchequer could reach them. The end result is that such a tax is likely to lose jobs as save them
- A tax on outsourcing wouldn’t work. Neither is it clear what exactly the distinction between outsourcing labour and buying in a product from abroad is. Every time we buy any product or service from aboard, whether it be a car or a search engine, we’re making use of foreign labour. If company can’t outsource part of its operations, then it will simply split into two, and buy in what it used to do in house.
- Foreign companies keep British competitive. The BNP are right to claim that in the real world free markets aren’t always perfectly competitive. Big companies don’t always offer as low prices or high quality as they could – but this problem only gets much, much worse when those same companies are protected behind trade barriers. Think of the old BT, when you had to wait months to get a phone line installed. The competition of international firms helps ensure that our domestic companies do what they should, and serve British consumers as well as they can.
- Foreign companies spread new ideas. Upcoming countries such as India and China have benefitted enormously from the physical capital and institutions that Western companies have invested in their countries. But the same process exists in Britain too. We all benefit from picking up foreign expertise, ideas and innovations, learning from Germany efficiency or American risk taking. As the woeful performance of some British companies shows, we certainly don’t know it all yet. Foreign companies help to increase productivity, and in turn growth and our standard of living.
- Foreign investment is a two way street. Although sales such as Cadbury’s make the news, for the last thirty years Britain has bought more foreign assets than have foreigners have bought ours. Companies as diverse as Tesco and BP have branches all over the world. These foreign investments have sent back profits and real wealth to the country.
- The global marketplace gives us enormous opportunities. With China and India’s economies taking off, there are suddenly another two billion people present in the world economy. The BNP frames that as two billion rivals to the British workforce; it’s more helpful to think of it as two billion new customers the British workforce can sell to.
Tags: policy
“Buying back foreign companies would bankrupt Britain.”
“The cost of this would be enormous, easily in the hundreds of billions, and far beyond what the Treasury can afford.”
I thought buying the banks had cost us that & had as good as bankrupted us?
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WTF, we’re planning to sell back the banks. The BNP’s new nationalised companies would be presumably kept forever.
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“We are planning to…” therein lies the problem, will they be sold & if they are, will it end up being at a bargain price to the likes of Goldman Sachs or something similar?
Proof of the pudding & all that.
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“they could have hand coded a website for their party, but instead they used a standard Wordpress install”
Using an industry standard is not exactly throwing Brits on the dole in order to employ cheap foreign labour is it?
“Foreign companies keep British competitive.”
Yeah, our foreign owned utilities industry is very competitive, they’re competing to see who can extort the British energy user the most!
“Upcoming countries such as India and China have benefitted enormously from the physical capital and institutions that Western companies have invested in their countries.”
Yes, an ideal role model – majority of people living in abject squalor whilst the few profit, ideal tory policy!
“These foreign investments have sent back profits and real wealth to the country.”
No they don’t, the profits go into off-shore bank accounts!
“it’s more helpful to think of it as two billion new customers the British workforce can sell to.”
Sell them what exactly? We don’t make anything anymore, and labour and tories have sold anything of any value to line the pockets of their friends!
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Apparently the Chinese intend to use their factory capacity to supply their own newly emerged middle classes with everything they need.
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“Using an industry standard is not exactly throwing Brits on the dole in order to employ cheap foreign labour is it?”
Of course it is. They could have used British programmers.
“Yes, an ideal role model – majority of people living in abject squalor whilst the few profit, ideal tory policy!”
They only ‘live in absolute squalor’ precisely because they followed the sort of economic nationalism the BNP wants to impose on Britain. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.
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Come on Jonathan, don’t talk such utter tripe!
Those conditions they ‘exist’ in were created by the greedy capitalism which you so enthusiastically espouse. They were created solely by western consumerism wanting everything on the cheap.
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“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.”
—Albert Einstein
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Who’s whipping boy are you Jonathan?
Are you well rewarded?
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Davey – so, are you implying capitalism created poverty in India and China? That implies they were rich to begin with – when was that?
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There is nothing wrong with foreign firms per se, so long as they understand who is in control, but when they don’t they have to be slapped into line. Thus the French owned Exito retail chain in Venezuela has been expropriated because they defied a government order not to raise prices. That should keep the rest of the foreign owned private sector on their toes and hopefully another lesson will not need to be administered any time soon.
The problem in Britain is that private capital often dictates to government, and the latter accepts this. So are you saying that a BNP government would put the likes of Murdoch in his place?
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I don’t think i have ever been so insulted by you Tory scum………..what you are trying to say is the Britain is useless and can’t make nothing,go back 70 yrs you traitors and ask yourself what did RJMitchell do?.I am a qualified engineer and i now drive fuel tankers because you tossers sold our country of,i enjoyed doing engineering,you probably have’nt got a clue wot an engineer is or does,too busy with little children,scum.
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At last, the Tories showing their true colours! Everything is driven by profit (or “competitiveness”) irrespective of the impact on the nation and its people. Great article which I’m sure the BNP will use to drive home the point that there’s “nothing British about Cameroon’s Conservatives”
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Hi Jim -
it’s not about profit. It’s about ensuring a better life for everyone, rich and poor.
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The Conservatives can’t & won’t deliver that as they will get their orders from the EU.
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What sort of person actually votes conservative?
Have they ever read this site?
This shows the truly odious self-centred defeatist nature of that vile party… Talk about rats and sinking ships!
They make this country out to be a lost cause who should submit to the forces of global capitalism.
What must Winston Churchill have thought of this betrayal by his own kith and kin?!
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Hi Davey -
I don’t understand – what’s defeatist about working with the world? Where do we say that Britain is a lost cause?
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But we’re not “working with the world” are we?
You seem to think outsourcing jobs whilst bringing in cheap foreign labour is a good thing for Britain?!!?
HOW EXACTLY!?!?
Prices haven’t suddenly gone down because some eastern european is packing the boxes have they?
My phone bill hasn’t got any cheaper since some incoherent asian started answering my enquiries!
Only a select few benefit from this nonsense!
In fact what are you trying to say exactly? That if Britain starts employing it’s own people the price of everything will go through the roof?!
Cos thats what it sounds like from the tone of this article!
Displacing the British workforce for short-term consumerism will lead to a whole plethora of social problems which the beleaguered tax-payer will eventually have to foot the bill for.
Vote BNP!
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Davey – prices have gone down actually. That’s exactly what we’re saying.
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Global capital ebbs and flows, and while i agree that foreign investment is not necessarily a bad thing, it has to be stated that cheap foreign labour undercuts local labour.
Mass immigration from the third world, to the developed world, reduces our standards of living; as well as eroding our cultural integrity.
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I’m coming to take your job. David Cameron promised it to me, he says if you complain I should scream ‘racist’. What does racist mean ?
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I think it means anything you want it to mean!
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WHAT……….DOES……….RACIST……..MEAN ?
NB over to you.
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Aleksandr Orlov says go to “Compare the MP.com”.
We say “Ask as many questions as possible, maybe we will get answers”.
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“We no longer need chimney sweepers in our economy”?
Really?
I have used them & I understand the ones that are about are busy, especially this winter.
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