Why Liz Truss is the real leader of the Anti-Growth Coalition

There is a surefire route back to a bigger economy – and none of the enemies targeted by the prime minister are the obstacle, writes Rob Merrick

What the prime minister is railing against is anyone who rejects her ideology (PA)

The hunt is on for the head of the Anti-Growth Coalition – that shadowy and devious force standing in the way of a rampant economy and prosperity for all, according to Liz Truss.

Is it Labour and the “militant unions”, or Brussels-loving Remainers, or the climate campaigners who disrupted the prime minister’s conference speech? They were all branded guilty by her. Could it be the “vested interests dressed up as think tanks”, as Truss called them – although, presumably, not the ultra-right-wing think tanks that are the hidden power behind her government?

Some who are sympathetic to her argument nevertheless want wimpy Tories brought in for questioning – those who oppose tearing up planning rules, building on the green belt or fracking. But no. I think the leader of the Anti-Growth Coalition is the person who has given us the ridiculous phrase. It’s the person in No 10 Downing Street – it’s Liz Truss.

Let me explain. What the prime minister is railing against is anyone who rejects her ideology: that only a failure to move fast and break things is holding Britain back.

In her world, slashing taxes and removing regulations will unleash an unstoppable wave of investment and entrepreneurism to end the long years of low growth we have suffered under, erm, a Conservative government.

If we are being kind, the evidence to support such a proposition is hard to find. A harsher judgement is that it has been tried before – and has failed.

It is a fantasy that the UK is a high-tax, high-regulation country, because the Thatcher revolution swept away that post-war consensus while creating left-behind areas that are still marred by disgraceful poverty decades later.

The government is in large part pinning its hopes on ripping up rules in new “investment zones” – but these simply rebadge George Osborne’s “enterprise zones”, which failed to deliver growth.

A staggering £43bn of tax cuts are coming down the track, but one study forecast that they will add less than 0.1 per cent to annual GDP – while leaving behind frightening levels of debt interest.

That 0.1 per cent contrasts with the 4 per cent annual hit to GDP forecast by the Treasury watchdog as a result of the rock-hard Brexit the economy has suffered. It is 40 times less.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has also estimated that UK imports and exports will be 15 per cent lower than if Britain had remained part of the EU. This will act as a massive drag on trade and growth.

In short, the tax-and-regulation-slashing gamble might turbo-charge the economy – but this seems highly unlikely, and at what cost to public services and the country’s sense of unity?

Meanwhile, reversing the economic self-mutilation of Brexit is the surefire, nailed-on route to growth. But the head of the Anti-Growth Coalition in No 10 will never admit it.