🚀 The Open Ground Party
Fringe"Let people build things"
Led by jamesLDN_startup · Founded 3 months ago
Policies
Create a fast-track AIM listing path for UK scale-ups that are growing but not yet profitable
The London Stock Exchange is in slow decline. AIM listings have halved in the last five years. The companies that should be listing here - British AI labs, biotech, clean energy, fintech - are instead moving to New York, or going private, o
Make it possible to start a company in one hour with zero cost
In Estonia, you can register a company online in about 15 minutes. In New Zealand it takes a single form and costs roughly £10. In the UK it takes at least a day, costs £50, and that is before you register for PAYE, VAT, and whatever else H
A British DARPA to fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research
ARIA (the Advanced Research and Invention Agency) was a good idea, underfunded and overcautious. The model it was based on, DARPA in the United States, has a track record that speaks for itself: the internet, GPS, mRNA vaccine technology, a
Raise the VAT threshold to £150k and simplify taxes for small businesses
The UK VAT threshold is £90,000. Cross it and you are suddenly managing quarterly VAT returns, Making Tax Digital, and a layer of compliance that has nothing to do with your actual business. I know founders who deliberately hold revenue bel
Let builders build: reform planning from the ground up
Britain does not have a land shortage. It has a permission shortage. Only about 6% of English land is built on. The reason housing is expensive is not that we have run out of space. It is that the planning system makes it extraordinarily di
Scrap business rates entirely and replace them with a land value tax
Business rates are a tax on improvement. You invest in your property, you pay more. You leave it derelict, you pay nothing. This is backwards. It punishes exactly the behaviour we want and rewards exactly the behaviour we dont. Land value