Allister Heath

This election is a binary battle between Boris and a Labour Party bent on the destruction of our freedom

In just five weeks’ time, Jeremy Corbyn and his anti-capitalist, anti-western storm-troopers could be marching into 10 Downing Street, preparing to dismantle our economy, our society and our institutions. Forget about Project Fear, or all of the usual hysterical warnings about the state of the world: a Labour victory, most likely at the head of a Left-wing coalition, would be the real deal, a genuine catastrophe. A despicable stench of anti-semitism, the oldest of hatreds, oozes from the party’s pores.

Labour under Corbyn, John Mcdonnell and whichever hard-left figures eventually replace them would be a calamity for our country, the worst, most destructive government of the modern era. This election is thus a manichean struggle: capitalism versus a nasty, vicious, prejudiced form of bureaucratic socialism; Leave versus Remain; day versus night.

The winner will take all: Johnson wants to reform our politics and our economy, often radically, better to conserve it; Corbyn and his allies want to burn it all down. One man will become PM; the other will be ousted. It is an existential, binary battle in which all voters will be asked to choose one side and in which “none of the above” will, with only a small number of exceptions, amount to a moral and practical cop-out.

One would expect, under such circumstances, for the panic in Middle England to be palpable, for the possibility of a hard-left government to be the only topic of conversation among at least half the nation, fearful for their homes, children, jobs and taxes. Yet most of the country has yet to wake up. What is wrong with them? Yes, the political madness of the past three and half years, which itself followed the explosive Scottish referendum and election of 2015, has desensitised many and normalised extreme rhetoric and behaviour. But that is no excuse: unless centre-right voters wake up and fast, the country risks sleep-walking to Armageddon.

It’s not just dyed-in-the wool Tories who ought to be appalled: centrists and sensible centre-left voters are overwhelmingly opposed to nationalisation without compensation or the abolition of private schools, the kinds of policies advocated by the Corbynite vanguard. As to Remainers, in what universe is a Canada-style free trade deal with the EU so unacceptable that it warrants voting for Corbyn and his anti-city Tobin taxes instead?

The hard Left doesn’t believe in private property rights, in markets or in the idea that we should keep most of what we earn. Mainstream Remainers who worry about the economics of Brexit should be far more terrified of Corbynomics: his version of remaining in the EU would be punctuated by endless litigation as he breaches state aid and human rights rules in his quest to command and control.

The same applies to all of those tempted by the Lib Dems: with the important exception of one or two of their potential MPS, does anybody really believe that most wouldn’t eventually support a Corbyn-led coalition if it meant some Cabinet jobs and revoking Brexit? They may restrain the hard-left on the margins, but not by enough to truly matter.

There is no third way: it’s either Boris or Corbyn, and the latter would wreak economic devastation, engage in permanent class and culture war and push through deranged social engineering. Choices and freedoms would be drastically curtailed. The broad economic settlement of the past 40 years, a model that even Gordon Brown didn’t fully destroy, would be overthrown. Working hard, setting up a business, bettering oneself, buying a property, saving for pensions or holidays, empowered consumers, ambition and aspiration: all of this would be severely discouraged through the tax and regulatory system.

We don’t yet know the specifics of Labour’s manifesto, but we know the kinds of policies that the party’s key players have endorsed in the past. They want to scrap Ofsted; the party voted to abolish private schools at its party conference. For several years now, Labour has flirted with the idea of a Land Value Tax – in effect, a move to tax existing wealth, not just income, a revolutionary change that would turn freeholders into leaseholders and gradually destroy the ownership society. Ed Miliband’s version targeted “mansions” but a pathway towards a full wealth tax is all too clear.

Labour has also pondered slashing the tax-free amount that can be received as an inheritance or gift: it is obsessed with taxing capital more severely. Corporation tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty would all go up; the highest rate of income tax would be raised to 50 per cent, and anybody earning over £80,000 would be dragged into the 45 per cent bracket. The total bill has been costed at £48.6 billion a year. Spending would jump by at least 3.5 per cent of GDP.

A raft of businesses would be nationalised outright, potentially at an unfair price determined by politicians, not the market, triggering capital flight from the UK. The green push would be so extreme that swathes of industry would soon be bankrupted. But even more dangerous is the proposal to require all firms employing over 250 people to transfer 10 per cent of their shares into a state fund over a decade: legalised theft on a grand scale which may require capital controls to avoid a complete market meltdown. At least £300 billion worth of shares would be seized in this way from the shareholders of 8,000 companies employing 10.4 million people, according to research from Policy Exchange. The state would be the biggest shareholder in 70 of the FTSE 100 companies, and the second-biggest in the remainder.

The Woodford crisis would prove to be a mere dry run for investors: in many cases, a tenth of their portfolio would be confiscated, and that is even before all of the tax increases and the economic collapse. Corbyn and his henchmen would wield vast influence over UK Plc. Everything is up for grabs; nothing is taboo anymore.

It makes no sense for anti-corbyn forces to be divided. This ought to be like the Cold War, when anybody who wasn’t a communist was an ally, even if they disagreed on important details. Why, in particular, is the Brexit Party planning to help Corbyn by splitting the Brexiteer vote? Unless the antisocialist majority unites and fast, their worst nightmare could soon be headed for No 10.