Hey Rachel, you cannot collect any taxes from a closed pub…

You’d think that after COVID, the lockdowns, the energy crisis and the economic battering small businesses took over the last few years, that any government with an ounce of sense would ease the burden on hospitality, not pile it on. You cannot collect taxes from closed businesses, But here we are, in what can only be described as a clueless, out of touch, economically suicidal move, Labour’s first budget has put a torpedo straight through the heart of Britain’s pubs, restaurants and hospitality sector. The result?… job losses, business closures and the slow death of our high streets.

Since Labour’s budget came into effect in April, the fallout has been devastating. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have vanished, no one is hiring and shifts are being slashed. Pubs are closing every single day and yet, Rachel Reeves and the Labour machine carry on like everything’s fine, spewing out the same stale soundbites about “growth” and “investment” while the industry literally bleeds to death right in front of them.

Let’s be crystal clear, this isn’t bad luck or global pressures, this is a man made disaster.

They hiked National Insurance contributions, making it even harder for small hospitality venues to retain staff, let alone take on new ones, they slashed business rates relief, meaning independents, the lifeblood of our towns, are being hammered with costs they simply cannot absorb. And to top it all off, food and drink inflation is soaring again, all because of Reeves budget and the attack on farmers. Wholesale prices are through the roof…Beer, meat, even potatoes, all up.

Oakman Inns, a pub chain with over 30 venues across the country, went under this week, that’s hundreds of jobs, gone overnight and they won’t be the last. The whispers in the industry are turning into roars. Big names are wobbling. Independents are on the edge, many are already finished, they just haven’t told their staff yet.

And it’s not just the venues, it’s the whole industry ecosystem…the brewers, the bakers, the food wholesalers, the cleaning companies, the suppliers, the event staff and the entertainment. When a pub closes, it doesn’t just affect a few bar staff, it wrecks an entire local economy.

Labour doesn’t get it, because they don’t want to get it. This is an authoritarian government more obsessed with micromanaging your speech, clamping down on dissent and appeasing their union backers, than saving the beating heart of British communities.

What they’ve done is effectively tax an entire industry out of existence and for what?… to fund more bloated government bureaucracy?… to throw more cash at failing state projects that never deliver?…to pretend that they’re “building back fairer” while the working class, the ones who staff the bars, work the kitchens and rely on these jobs, are literally being dumped on the scrapheap.

The high street is dying, the British local is dying and Labour is cheering from the sidelines with a pint of warm ideology.

This isn’t just a rough patch, this is terminal, unless something changes in the next 12 to 18 months, we are looking at a full blown hospitality catastrophe, one that will take a decade or more to reverse, if we’re lucky. I personally don’t think it will recover. And no amount of empty platitudes or Labour’s corporate friendly waffle, will bring those pubs back once they’re gone.

Enough is enough. The industry needs help, not handouts, but oxygen, breathing room. Slash the tax, scrap the National Insurance hikes, restore business rate relief and atop bleeding this industry dry, before there’s absolutely  nothing left but boarded up windows and “To Let” signs on every corner.

We’re not just losing jobs, we’re losing culture, community and a way of life. And it’s all thanks to a government that wouldn’t know a public house from a public toilet.

ADAM BROOKS ✍🏽 

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