Ross Clark

angrily to Dyson’s suggestion that, following Brexit, Britain should take advantage of its new-found freedom to abolish corporation tax and ease labour laws. His comments have rekindled fears on the Left that the Government might want to turn Britain into what Jeremy Corbyn likes to call a “lowwage, offshore tax haven”.

If that is what Britain did become, it would be something of a novelty. There aren’t too many other “low-wage” tax havens around. On the contrary, almost every country that has gone down the route of attracting business through low taxes has greatly increased its living standards.

If the streets of Singapore were full of starving wretches thanks to having been cast-off by evil capitalism Corbyn would have a point. Yet as he must know – or at least ought to know – the opposite is true. On virtually every measure of living standards, Singapore rates among the best countries on Earth. It combines Scandinavian living standards with a far higher economic growth rate. Needless to say Dyson and Martin have both been rubbished by Twitter mobs over the past 48 hours, with Labour MPs and activists lining up to denounce them. Dyson has even been accused of “destroying” jobs because he transferred production to Malaysia.

That is a strange way to refer to someone who created a business and who still employs hundreds of people in Britain.

While lower-paid manufacturing jobs have gone to Asia the research element, with its higher-paying jobs, is still very much in Britain.

What distinguished Dyson and Martin from many of the prominent anti-Brexit voices in business is that they are genuine entrepreneurs – they started businesses from scratch. There is a huge difference between them and the corporate career men who have risen through company ranks without ever taking a risk with their own money.

So many of those business leaders who have been so vociferous about attacking Brexit have been those who are running companies that are trading on their past glories – if not in actual decline.

Obviously the views of anybody running a large organisation employing thousands of people needs to be taken into account. But if Britain is to take advantage of Brexit and become Europe’s engine of growth it is the Dysons and Martins who we need to be listening to the most. It is they who have the greatest vision, they who know most about seizing opportunities.

NOT ONLY that, it is they who know most about taking on established players, and about persevering when people around them are trying to tell them they are destined to fail. When Tim Martin says he favours Brexit it is because he can see the possibilities it will bring – unlike a business leader of a more managerial mindset, who might be more inclined to focus on the short-term uncertainty that Brexit, like any change, will inevitably cause.

Of course there are entrepreneurs who take a somewhat different view on Brexit and their views need to be considered too. But to try to rubbish two of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs, as many Remainers rushed to do, shows you just how small-minded and desperate the Remain campaign has become.

‘Dyson and Martin are genuine entrepreneurs’