Libertarian Party UK

02/11/2026

01/11/2026

Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG 25 April 1915 – 21 January 2006), was a British civil servant who served as Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971. His introduction of free-market economic policies are widely credited with turning postwar Hong Kong into a thriving global financial centre. During Cowperthwaite's tenure as Financial Secretary, real wages in Hong Kong rose by 50%, and the portion of the population in acute poverty fell from 50% to 15%.

He arrived in Hong Kong in 1945 and was assigned to the Department of Supplies, Trade and Industry. Cowperthwaite built on the economic policies of his predecessors, Arthur Clarke and Geoffrey Follows, promoting free trade, low taxation, budget surpluses, limited state intervention in the economy, a distrust of industrial planning, and sound money. It was a policy mix that drew more on Adam Smith and Gladstone than on Keynes and Attlee. However, Cowperthwaite was a pragmatic civil servant rather than a theoretician and he based his policies on his experience, empirical data and what he believed would work in practice.
He refused to compile GDP statistics arguing that such data was not useful to managing an economy and would lead to officials meddling in the economy. He was once asked what the key thing that poor countries could do to improve their growth. Cowperthwaite replied:

They should abolish the office of national statistics.

Sir John was one of the practical Libertarian inspirations that has inspired me to attend this years Free Cities Conference in Prague.

Only devolution to free cities , that have historically been economically successful is the way forward in my opinion.

He rejected the Keynesian dogma and turned Hong Kong from one of the poorest places on earth to one of the most prosperous.

Western Europe is addicted to ruinous Tax and Spend. The permanent Civil Service is ever expanding through the medium of unaccountable Quangos now expanded to over 600.

A real reforming incoming government would be adopting both Sir John's and Milei's rejection of central planning and a bloated State

Andrew Withers FRSA

31/10/2026

This has been the best week we have had for memberships and donations in a good while, new members and returning.

In our forthcoming twentieth year since formation in York.

Our message of slashing the size of the State is finally registering with the public. Our new logo carries the chainsaw symbolising our intent that all QUANGOS should be wound up along with all the fake charities receiving tax payers largesse.

While the entitled are drooling over their gherkins, how many of you took on board that Healey and Burnham have given themselves permission to break into your personal and business bank accounts and take what them think you owe them in tax?

If you think this is just, you are a socialist, why are you reading this?

Taxation is theft, it is not Healey's money

Join us, join us now

Andrew Withers FRSA

30/10/2026

"Who is bankrolling Nigel Farage's party?" asks Bridget Phillipson. "Labour will protect our democracy from foreign influence."

Right. Same question back.
Who is bankrolling Labour, and the machine around it?
Gary Lubner. South African. Former Autoglass chief. Millions.
Lord Alli. Buys the clothes, lends the flat.
George Soros. Money into Best for Britain and Fair Vote, routed through a London outpost, which is how a foreign fortune gets round a ban on foreign donations.
Pierre Omidyar. French-Iranian, eBay founder, funding the campaign groups.
Bill Gates. In for the photo call.
Swedish philanthropists. Bloomberg.
And Verbatim, which made the Channel 4 sting she is riding, is itself funded from abroad. So the watchdog on foreign money is on foreign money.

And those are off the top of my head. No research. Give me an afternoon and the list fills a page. So the party promising to protect democracy from foreign influence is up to its neck in it, legally, through the same door, and has proposed no cap that would inconvenience a single person in the room. They held a drinks party for them in Downing Street.

The question is not who is bankrolling Farage. It is why Labour thinks the answer changes depending on whose name is on the cheque.

"Protect our democracy from foreign influence." They would not know where to start.
- Christian on X

29/10/2026

BUDGET SUMMARY. The government continues to take your money.

Growth is still forecast at 1% - way less than the rate of inflation. The state is still huge. Nothing has really changed.

Here are the main points about a budget that really does nothing:

1) £100 energy cash for 20m households, VAT cut on electricity.is extended, standing charges gone. Their green policies made energy extortionately expensive and are now handing you £100 and expect your issues to go away!

2) Minimum wage rises again. This may be great, short-term, for the people who already have jobs, less great for the ones who won’t get hired now. Young, old and disabled will be even more disenfranchised. As wages rise, so will inflation cancel out any benefit.

3) Extra tax on banks and on savings/property income so they can fund that £100. So, they are just moving the money around and calling it help, to win votes.

4) ISA limit stays at 20k (they almost cut it and then tell you how wonderful they are because they didn’t). The fuel duty freeze is extended just long enough to cover a May/June election. Business rates have been made free for shops with a ratable value of up to £18k per year instead of £12k. It’s an adjustment that was long overdue.

No planning reform, no energy security, no shrinking the state.

If you expected them to suddenly believe in free markets, you were the problem.

This is a budget to usher in an election which could allow Labour to win a catastrophic second term, with the so-called right in disarray. Meanwhile, Reform is haemorrhaging support and trying to win it back by bringing in more socialist policies.

We live in interesting times.

Martin Day

27/10/2026

Are London and other UK major cities about to become engulfed in the same riots as France? When President Macron recognised the Palestinian State, did he believe the capital was going to be Paris?

Do libertarians support open borders, yes. Does this party support them? Also yes. But at the same time, they do not work in conjunction with a welfare state that is more generous than elsewhere, and we also believe that security for the people already here is paramount for the government. Anything else breaches the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP).

If riots like Milan and Barcelona are to be avoided, European leaders, including Andy Burnham, need to stop involving themselves in wars that do not concern them.

26/10/2026

This last week we were planning how to celebrate our twentieth anniversary of foundation in York.

On Tuesday HM Revenue and Customs decided to join in the celebrations by sending our office in Brighton a letter saying that following an investigation of our returns to the Electoral Commision we are not liable for Corporation Tax

Mr Healey, I know you are desperate to keep the entitled in benefits, but taxing political parties is a new low , it is bad enough the every one of our candidates has to pay an 'election tax' of £500.

In twenty years we have filing our returns on time with the Electoral Commission and have never received a letter like this (apparently they have allegedly sent out a previous letter which we have never received)

This is the legal position

Yes, political parties in the UK and many other jurisdictions are liable for Corporation Tax, even though they are not traditional commercial companies.

* Unincorporated Status: Most major UK political parties (such as the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party) are structured as unincorporated associations. Under tax law, they are placed into the Corporation Tax regime rather than Income Tax.
* What is Taxable: Political parties do not pay Corporation Tax on standard political income, such as membership subscriptions, general donations, sponsorship (when regulated as donations), or most traditional fundraising events. However, they are liable for Corporation Tax on taxable or investment income, such as:
* Commercial rental income (including office space rented out to MPs or third parties)
* Interest earned on bank deposits and other investments
* Certain other non-exempt business or commercial activities
* Tax Rates: Depending on the size and structure of the party or local branch, the Corporation Tax rate applies (for instance, small groups may fall under the small profits rate, while larger groups face higher standard rates like 25% or 19% depending on thresholds). Local party branches that generate commercial rental income are legally required to assess and pay this tax to HMRC, though compliance gaps have historically been noted.

Under Labour's if it moves tax it, taxing taking part in the 'democratic process' is an appalling state of affairs, coupled with the threats regularly received from the Electoral Commission (a Quango) whose staff rejoice in making the threats signing off with pronouns.

So, as we do not have to pay Corporation Tax on membership and donations, we want more members and donations despite the upswing recently. The Libertarian Foundation has recently been registered in the Netherlands of which this Party is a member of.

The authoritarians are on the march, time to dig in.

Andrew Withers FRSA

24/10/2026

MAKE MONEY REAL AGAIN!!!

You might have seen this slogan around before, and been a little
confused on what it actually means, how is money not real? I have these
physical banknotes in my hand, isn't that real money?

To understand this we must think back in history, where money was linked
against a marketable commodity, in plain English: the thing the majority of
people would buy. This became money because the vast majority of people
desired it, and thus it held value. Throughout history almost anything
has been used as money, Romans used salt, to***co was used in the early
America, gold and silver have also been used as money.

Now, modern day money, what is it? Well its fiat, it has no value other
than what the government sets it at, the "face value". The 1p coin is
worth more in its scrap value than its face value, but yet we accept it
at 1p as the government legislates we must, and that we can't deface
(melt down) currency.

In history, money issued by governments were linked to their value in
gold, this was known as the gold standard. This was abandoned in the US
by Nixon, blaming it for prolonging the great depression. The majority
of economists today would not recommend returning the gold standard, all
because the belief in that government can set prices better than the
market can. If this system is so great, why did people starve in Mao
China and Stalin USSR?

The truth is, we are all kept in line by quoting inflation figures.
There is two things the government doesn't want you to know:

1. There is no such thing as just "inflation", we have monetary
inflation (the lower buying power (value) of a currency) and price
inflation (the rising price of a good or commodity).

2. Monetary inflation can not exist without central bankers printing
more money. "Printing" here is metaphorical as much of the money supply
is now digital, a number in the government database, which they
continuously raise.

If you simply believe this is some right wing rubbish, even the
telegraph plays into the same narrative
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/10/21/inflation-predicted-to-add-billions-to-benefits-bill-2027/)
where they blame the rising cost of oil and gas for inflation, some
blame the unions, but fundamentally when ALL prices are rising, this
isn't because of some supply chain shortage, but due to the devaluation
of the currency we are using, and in the case of unions, they strike to
maintain a wage in line with inflation, inflation directly causes the
problem of unions, and inflation is manufactured right here in London,
within the Bank of England.

Why does government increase the supply of money then? Its a way of
taxation without representation (in English: taxing without parliament
needing to approve a budget), when money is printed, it enters the
market within the government or the richest companies in the country,
they spend this new money while its value is higher, and in doing so,
decreases the value of the currency (causing monetary inflation), this
is why inflation always benefits the rich.

If you want your cost of living to go down, if you want affordable goods
again, then you need to do two things:

1. Stop calling for more government spending, government spending is
directly causing inflation.

2. Demand that money is made real again, only when the government loses
the ability to be able to increase the supply of money to their and big
business benefits, can we finally work on improving the quality of life
for the poorest within society.