Philip Hammond, of all people, ought to ‘relish’ Brexit and the opportunity it will hand to Chancellors to set their own tax rates. But in ‘yet another blunder’, says the Sun, the current occupant of No.11 has told the French that Britain won’t lower taxes. ‘Has he gone made?’ the paper asks. Back in January, Hammond said that lower taxes and limited regulation could be an important way of luring businesses to Britain after Brexit. ‘As a Conservative, that is exactly what he should be saying’. Now, though, says the Sun, ‘he has contradicted himself’. Whatever level the Chancellor plans to set tax rates, ‘why make any promises and surrender a potent bargaining chip?’, asks the Sun. Hammond’s ‘dismal gloom’ and his ‘obvious desire for Brexit to be virtually invisible’ is making the Chancellor something of a ‘liability’ says the Sun. ‘The Prime Minister must tell him to belt up,’ the paper concludes.
We should welcome Hammond’s intervention and it’s good news that the ‘soft-Brexit wing of the party’ is speaking up, says the FT. The Chancellor has offered a number of ‘helpful’ comments recently – among the most useful of which, according to the FT, are his remarks that Britain would not seek to adopt a low-tax, low-regulation economy in the wake of Brexit. ‘Both politically and economically, Mr Hammond’s views make sense’, and it’s time for the Prime Minister to back her Chancellor. After all, using a ‘Singapore option as a threat’ has ‘never been credible’, the FT argues, with the paper saying that ‘Britain would lose far more than the EU from a cliff-edge departure.’. While smaller countries, such as Ireland, have made a success of low tax rates, for a bigger country like Britain a further cut in corporate tax ‘would almost certainly fail to attract enough investment to pay for itself,’ points out the FT. It’s clear, says the paper, that turning Britain ‘into Singapore, even the unrealistic impression of Singapore that some Brexiters hold, is an idle threat’ – and the Chancellor is right to rule out that Brexit option.
‘Brexit is an opportunity for Britain to break with the high-tax, dirigiste European approach, not perpetuate it,’ argues the Daily Telegraph. Britain’s departure from the EU ‘offers the chance for the Conservatives’ to do something they wholly failed to do during the general election: talk about a ‘gradual reduction of both personal and corporate taxes’. Doing this alongside promising to reform public services would mean employment and growth were boosted, the Telegraph argues; and this increase in tax revenues would help ’to reduce the borrowing that will otherwise be a burden on future generations.’ Philip Hammond is mistaken not to make this case and the Chancellor ‘needs to consider how Britain will look in 10 or 20 years’ time, not just in three or four’. The Telegraph finishes its editorial with a warning: if the Tories – not least the Chancellor – don’t start talking about lower taxes, ‘they will be trumped by Jeremy Corbyn’. ‘If that happens,’ says the Telegraph, ‘we will be not so much a Singapore on the edge of Europe, as a socialist outpost.’
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