November 22, 2013
A number of leading small business organisations have got together to launch a new pressure group, The Entrepreneurs' Alliance. The new umbrella organisation is intended to better serve small firms and entrepreneurs in the UK.
According to Emma Jones (pictured), founder of Enterprise Nation, the germ of the idea came from City AM editor Allister Heath, who called for a "union of entrepreneurs" in a piece for the Daily Telegraph. The same point was recently made by Rohan Silva, former senior policy adviser to Number 10, who said: "There should be a trade union for entrepreneurs."
Founding members of the Entrepreneurs' Alliance are:
In an open letter to national newspapers this week, the Alliance has set out its stall. It said: "We have come together to create the Entrepreneurs' Alliance: a pressure group to stand up for Britain's wealth creators.
"Together we represent more than 2.5m small and micro businesses. We are pooling our power and understanding of the small business community to remove the obstacles constructed by an economy too focused on the demands of big business.
"To date, there has been no pressure from a single body to rival the lobbying power of big business. Whenever policy makers are gearing their efforts towards the richest and the loudest, we will combine to point out the unintended consequences to the wider economy.
"Through this union of entrepreneurial expertise, we want to see an environment in which self-starters are free to challenge established business models, without being bound by the regulation and red tape that reinforces traditional monopolies."
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