The Labour Party needs to provide “reasonably business-friendly policies”, says Mills
Top Labour donor and millionaire business tycoon John Mills thinks the Labour Party lost the election because of its failure to “reach out to the business world”.
Mills, who is the founder of consumer product company JML Group, has donated over £1.7m to the party since 2005.
He told LondonlovesBusiness.com: “I think that Labour did not reach out enough to aspirational “Middle England” or to the business world and I think it alienated some key electors by not promising an EU referendum.”
Mills said that former party leader Ed Miliband “did rather well during the election”. However, he pointed out that the “Conservative press” was very unfair to him.
On being asked whether Lord Sugar’s resignation from the party was a fair move, Mills said: “If you are a fundamentally strong supporter I think you should stick with the party through thick and thin.”
He also said that he does not regret making a donation to the Labour Party. However, the party’s next leader will impact his decision to make future donations.
While Mills did not comment on who the next Labour leader should be, he said the party needs a frontrunner with “charisma, political intelligence and the capacity to appeal to a wide sector of the electorate”.
The biggest issues the government should be focussing on:
According to Mills, the biggest business issues the government should be focussing on include “increasing investment and productivity”, “improving infrastructure” and “rebalancing the UK economy towards a better net trade balance”.
Speaking about Britain’s exit from the EU, Mills said: “I don’t think that a Brexit would make a huge difference either way economically. I think the big impact would be political.”
Mills went on to say that an EU referendum should only be held before 2017, “provided the renegotiation process does not then become too rushed”.
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