Business

Our prosperity depends on the success of business and commerce. Every step must be taken to make our country the most attractive place to start, run, expand and invest in businesses. Government has a vital role to play in providing the right environment for enterprise but too often government initiatives hinder rather than help business.

Taxing UK based businesses no longer makes economic sense and, with globalisation, is increasingly unfair.

Our pursuit of excellence in public services will deliver real commercial benefits. We believe that money should be left with companies to do what business does best; to employ people and create wealth.

The Peoples Party will:

• abolish Corporation Tax and exempt the first £30,000 of profit for the self employed from income based taxes
• abolish Employers National Insurance contributions and Self Employed National Insurance contributions
• abolish most regulation particularly in employment matters and replace with a “short” business charter
• cap the liability of companies, limit claims and the scope for litigation
• abolish Business Rates for all businesses with less than a £1m turnover

Transport

Government has a primary role to ensure effective and efficient transport links. Traffic jams, congestion, delays, overcrowding simply have no place in a dynamic and successful country.

The Peoples Party will:

increase public investment in transport infrastructure by 50% and leverage private investment by 200%

• undertake a wholesale renewal and modernisation of Britain’s road network, fixing potholes, resurfacing, updating road markings and reflective studs, making roads new technology friendly
• promote “smart” transport solutions to increase use of existing transport capacity, encourage autonomous driving technologies
• change planning laws to make the construction of new transport infrastructure a national priority that cannot be delayed by local protests
• enhance the motorway network
• promote electric cars, phase out diesel and petrol cars, lorries and buses
• install a millions of charging points
• encourage cycling within towns and cities
• promote electric air taxis
• encourage the construction of new bypasses to remove congestion and free towns and villages from through traffic
• require dramatic improvements to rail commuter services, increasing capacity and improving seating
• establish a cost effective network of high speed trains to reduce journey times and increase capacity
• require cars to display an insurance disc

Energy

Ensuring long term energy supplies is a primary responsibility of government. Energy must be affordable and sustainable.

Expedient measures such as burning natural gas to create electricity is an extremely wasteful use of a precious resource. Further, as the amount of gas in the North Sea declines, it will also make the United Kingdom highly dependent on continental pipelines.

Our strategic vulnerability, at the end of these pipelines or via LPG tanker , demands the development of alternative sources of energy supply, sooner rather than later.

The Peoples Party will:

• support the use of small and medium reactors (SMRs) as the most practical and environmentally friendly solution to our energy needs. Free Rolls Royce from restrictions in the development and application of this technology
• encourage the exploitation of UK offshore shale gas resources, with a ten year moratorium on land based fracking to gather evidence on its environmental impact
• encourage domestic energy production through solar and heat pumps
• support economic renewable energy schemes

Europe

We believe that leaving the European Union is an unmitigated national tragedy, inflicting massive self harm and resulting from a disastrous failure of political leadership.  We will hold those involved accountable for their treasonable actions. We will seek to rejoin the European Union as soon as practicable.

The Peoples Party supports:

• rejoining the European Union
• negotiations to create an Atlantic Free Trade Area between North America and the Europe as a basis for greater prosperity, freedom of movement and security for the people and commerce

Immigration

Current and past immigration policies have been deeply flawed, undermining popular support and leading to social tensions. This, coupled with a woeful failure to integrate and to assimilate immigrants into British culture has been a disaster.

The United Kingdom is a nation of immigrants. Immigration is not bad but good. We will need immigrants to help our country prosper and succeed in the future. We support freedom of movement within the EU but like other EU nations, we do not need immigrants who are a burden on the state, have no intention of assimilating and contributing to national prosperity.

As a nation we must seek to attract the best and brightest to live in our country, actively recruiting talent from around the world and making it very easy to come and settle in the UK.

The Peoples Party will:

• introduce a positive immigration policy that headhunts people of talent, enterprise and industry encouraging them to move to the UK
• limit all other forms of immigration by introducing an immediate economic benefit test
• ensure that the welfare system does not encourage illegal immigration to the UK
• make the mastery of English a formal requirement to stay
• actively the encourage the assimilation of recent immigrants to the UK and British culture
• aggressively tackle discrimination of all kinds, including self imposed discrimination by immigrants who seek to retain practices that are not compatible with assimilation into mainstream British culture

Foreign Affairs

We must do all we can to help the people of developing nations achieve economic prosperity and development. As a key element of this we must promote the use of English in these countries and provide extensive support for learning the language.

In a world that is capable of achieving so much, it is scandal that so many still live in poverty without basic provisions such as fresh water, food, sanitation, immunisation and shelter. This must be addressed as a priority.

We also deplore the waste of the talents of people who are born into underdeveloped countries. We must do all that we can to give the opportunity for people to achieve their full potential.

Fully engage in international diplomacy and non governmental organisations to promote freedom of speech and the rule of law. We will actively oppose organisations and countries that seek to limit the free flow of information, people or ideas.

The world needs a “United Nations” that works to improve the lives of people who live in developing countries and or under political tyranny. The failure of the current United Nations means that too often global initiatives fall to the United States and the resolve of the American people to resource the struggle for development, freedom and democracy.

The Peoples Party supports:

• increased foreign aid to help ensure that people have the basic staples of life
• foreign aid initiatives that provide education. We will seek to establish and fund education projects in developing countries, including the provision of computers, tablets and the supporting infrastructure to access online education courses. We will fund WiFi programmes to provide global access to the internet
• the promotion of “western values” – freedom of speech, liberty and tolerance.
• the creation of global citizenship to allow the talented and most able to best harness their skills irrespective of national boundaries
• foreign policy initiatives and actions inspired and led by the United States as it compensates for the weakness of the United Nations in delivering global security and development
• a remodelling of the voting procedures of the United Nations to reflect the contributions of its members to the organisation’s work

Local government

Local government needs to be radically reformed. It has evolved to become bureaucratic, wasteful and unaccountable. Popular resentment with the performance of local government is evident by the poor turnouts at local elections. Few people know who their local councillors are, and council operations and decision making are mystery that even fewer people can claim to understand.

The revitalisation of local government is necessary to make it again an effective force.

The Peoples Party will:

• replace all local councillors with an elected mayor or chief executive
• remove many of the current functions of local government such as education to ensure better accountability
• make the council tax directly related to cost of local services
• ensure that local government is focused on local issues such as roads, libraries and recreation. We will make public parks and open spaces outstanding

Constitutional and Governmental Reform

We are a progressive liberal party. We encourage freedom of thought, belief and expression and will actively promote these values in all aspects of national life. We support individual freedom and will ensure that rights are protected and enhanced by the state. We oppose all forms of discrimination and will do all that we can to ensure every person can achieve their full potential.

We believe that monarchy and the establishment it represents are incompatible with the progressive, dynamic, inclusive country we wish to create. The head of state should be more than a figurehead and act as the “conscious of the nation.” He or she should have the legitimacy required to veto legislation that is not in the long term interests of the British people. The head of state should not decided by birth into a particular family, we want the “King” or “Queen” to be directly elected by the people.

Britain’s unwritten constitution needs to be finally written down, guaranteeing the rule of law and clearly setting out a separation of powers between the government, parliament and the judiciary.

The House of Lords is an anachronism that must be replaced with a properly democratic second chamber able to hold the Government to account.

The House of Commons has grown unwieldy, making it difficult to attract the talent required for good government.

Devolution within the United Kingdom is an unsatisfactory half way house that needs either to go further or be reversed.

As a secular party and we believe in the disestablishment of the Church of England.

The Peoples Party will:

• consult to find the best way of introducing a directly elected head of state
• establish a written constitution and a bill of rights for the United Kingdom
• remove the rights of existing peers to sit in the House of Lords
• create a second chamber of 100 Lords, elected by proportional representation, based on the votes received by political parties at the last general election
• require the Lords to meet at venues outside London, traveling the country on a regular circuit to help increase popular engagement
• reduce the size of the House of Commons to 200 MPs and double their salaries
• abolish devolution and support votes on full independence for Scotland, Wales and the unification of Ireland
• separation of Church and State, with schools required to be secular and not favour a particular religion in their teaching or day to day operation.

Agriculture

The system of agricultural subsidies inherent in the European Union’s Common Agricultural policy promotes inefficiency, waste and higher food prices. They also hinder the development of third world economies making it virtually impossible for these countries to export agricultural products to the EU.

The Peoples Party will:

• abolish subsidies and establish measures to compensate for the loss of agricultural subsidies
• encourage farmers to concentrate on the production of high quality, wholesome and health promoting foodstuffs
• ban non UK based fishing boats from UK waters
• encourage developing economies to export agricultural produce to the UK

Culture and sport

We are proud of British traditions, culture and history. Great Britain and the British Empire was a force good in the world and its achievements should be celebrated. British history should be a core subject in schools and we will create Museum of British History increase the accessibility of our island story. Understanding history is essential to learn from mistakes and inform good decision making in the future.

We fully support the media freedom and oppose all forms of censorship. We will stop funding of the BBC through the licence fee and seek to provide a level playing field for a diversity of media outlets.

We believe that competitive sport is essential to provide exercise and build a sense of community.

The Peoples Party will:

• promote British history and culture in schools
• create a Museum of British History
• abolish the BBC licence fee
• fund the provision of sport at all levels