The property industry is mainly made up of small SMEs and whilst the big boys often grab the headlines it’s 1-3 office operations with a handful of employees that power the engine.

So how are Labour’s plans for the sector looking. I’ve been through enough Gov’t changes to know how destabilising hyperbole can be – and lets’ face it, there are plenty in our sector happy to fan the flames of worry for clicks.

Divide and conquer exists as an expression for a reason, and given such a majority are SMEs do you really want to leave it to corporates or larger businesses to respond when they may have a different set of desired outcomes. Smaller businesses MUST make their voices heard, you need to lobby your local CBI rep and MP now.

Whether we want to make a profit with a view to sell or run a comfortable lifestyle business – how might the immediate political future affect us.

Initial signs from Labour look worrying, with seemingly immediate acceptance of substantial wage demands encouraging many others to do something similar – last time that happened it was disastrous back in the 70s. From an SME perspective – the idea that 5% of your workforce needs to vote to unionise and 10% for strike action seems counterintuitive and bound to create extra cost and dampen growth and innovation.

Despite having stated they’d water down some of their employment suggestions, it seems their sizeable majority and willingness to be political rather than practical means a potential massive increase in costs to manage things like the right to claim unfair dismissal from day one, predictable contracts from 12 weeks, potential paid parental leave from day one, default right to flexible working from day one, extra salary to administer potential union membership etc., the list goes on and could lead to successful businesses being stopped in their tracks and returned to the 70s as they stagnate under the weight of completely unnecessary legislation. You may think this is not going to affect you – but there appears to be no lower limit to the size of business affected.

Working hard building a business is a long-term plan for most of us and again, putting up CGT risks dampening innovation – entrepreneurs need to be rewarded, more employees in more businesses means more tax take.

Tax, and the way you pay it, is set to get every more complicated and your bill bigger.

Here’s a suggestion – why not a revolutionary flat rate of 20% of everything we ever make, including our principal residence. Not going to happen sadly.

Things did seem to be getting a bit better, with inflation and interest rates on the way down and growth up – so we must try not to allow a change of Government to cow us into accepting something that can’t achieve anything useful for smaller businesses – the ones that really power UK PLC. Make your voice heard – now.