The political parties, get together.

Things have been busy for the micro business alliance in the last few months we are a new organisation, so a lot of time has been spent letting people know that we exist and more importantly what we exist for. We don’t want to get into the situation ever again when millions of small business owners went through a crisis like the Covid pandemic with no support whatsoever.
We lost good businesses and good people because government as all levels struggled to understand the sector and the support it needed; one size fits all was not a solution as we saw!

Representing the Alliance members.

Looking at this autumn period, it’s been that time when all the political parties get together for their conferences, and we had a chance to represent small and micro businesses at both the Conservative party conference in Manchester and the Labour party conference in Liverpool.

The common thread from all our members is that on top of all the individual issues they face, they consistently have two asks of government which keep on coming up year in year out.
One “make it easier for me to do business” and the other is “give me a level playing field to operate on”.

In both instances the main political parties tend to still treat small and micro businesses as “Big business only smaller” which misses the point, that they are completely different animals with different needs, challenges and opportunities. This is something we at the Micro business alliance and my team at the Forum always have to keep in mind, who you and your businesses are and tailoring our support and services to help you all.
We constantly have to review government communication and regulation and then write new material to explain it and make it practical for you, our members and supporters.

How did the party conferences go?

They were very different events, while there were many interesting people at the Conference in Manchester it felt a little flat and in my mind there was a sense of inertia to the whole small business discussion.
We have the ideas, of which the MPs and advisors listened, but I got the feeling that little of it would turn into action! This is a shame because they need new ideas and a fresh approach and the alliance has the ideas and energy to provide some of these!

The Labour conference was a little different in that as well as the usual business events and discussions they created Small business Sunday in an attempt to get closer to and to understand better the small and micro business community.

The event was well attended by both the deputy leader and also the shadow business minister, Jonathan Reynolds and many of his team. They ran workshops, listened, committed to take action and set up follow up meetings with requests to submit more ideas in writing on how they can better support small and micro businesses and their owners. I’m hopeful that we will see some good ideas coming forward and that their enthusiasm for the sector will transfer to the conservative party as well.

How we help our members.

This is the strength of our service for members. Your support and the fact there is 1.2 million of you, means we do get governments attention. Not only do we provide practical, proactive, preventative guidance and information, but we are taking your voices to those in power, to make sure that they operate in the same way with small and micro businesses, as we do.
We strive to ensure that you are never excluded again, that conducting your business is made simpler and that you all have a more level playing field to operate on.

We really do believe in “Trickle up Economics and that Micro is Mighty”.