More than 90 business leaders and MPs have written to Rachel Reeves urging the Chancellor to halt what they call the relentless creep of taxes on Britain’s entrepreneurs, warning that the people who build and scale the country’s companies are increasingly being given a reason to take them elsewhere.

The signatories read like a roll-call of British enterprise. They include Luke Johnson, chairman of Gail’s Bakery; Johnnie Boden, founder of the clothing retailer Boden; Marcel Khan, chief executive of Franco Manca and The Real Greek; and Andreas Adamides, chief executive of Helm. They are joined by 19 MPs, among them Dame Priti Patel, shadow foreign secretary; Andrew Griffith, shadow business and trade secretary; and Chris Philp, shadow home secretary.

The letter has been written by Helm, Britain’s largest network of scale-up founders, and marks the launch of its Stop the Creep campaign. It is the latest sign of a hardening mood among the country’s wealth creators, who have spent much of the past year warning the Chancellor that raising taxes on capital gains would stifle investment.

In November 2025, Reeves told entrepreneurs she wanted to make the United Kingdom the most attractive place in the world to start and scale a business. The signatories argue that the opposite is happening.

Their central charge is one of cumulative damage, a “death by a thousand cuts”. Employers’ National Insurance and capital gains tax on dividends have risen, while Business Asset Disposal Relief, Business Property Relief and Agricultural Property Relief have all been pared back. Business Asset Disposal Relief, the headline relief for founders selling up, has seen its rate climb from 10 per cent to 14 per cent in April 2025 and to 18 per cent from April 2026, close to a doubling of the bill facing those who reach a sale.

The letter sets that record against an unforgiving backdrop. Only four in ten UK businesses reach their fifth birthday, it notes, and while most owners dream of one day selling up and retiring on the proceeds, very few ever do. Of the five million companies registered in Britain, just 1,400 sold for more than £1 million in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. For the handful who make it that far, the signatories say, the reward for years of risk and forgone salary is a tax bill that has nearly doubled in two years.

While Britain “tightens the screws” on its founders, the letter argues, rival nations are “rolling out the red carpet”. The United States offers zero tax on the first $10 million of a company sale, and Cyprus, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates and Singapore are all actively courting British founders with low-tax regimes and pro-growth regulation.

The risk, the signatories warn, is that Britain becomes an “incubator economy”, world-class at creating businesses but unable to keep them, a concern they say the Government’s own advisers have raised. It is a fear that runs through much of the recent commentary on the Chancellor’s approach, including research suggesting Reeves’s tax plans could push as many as one in eight UK businesses overseas.

The letter is careful not to write the country off. “We believe Britain remains one of the most entrepreneurial and dynamic countries on Earth,” it states. “Act now, and the Government can still keep its promise, and its scale-up founders. Fail, and Britain will continue training entrepreneurs for export.”

Adamides was unsparing in his assessment. “Britain’s founders take the risks, forgo the salaries and create the jobs that power our economy. Yet the tax system is telling them to leave,” he said. “The relentless creep of taxes on those who scale businesses is corrosive, and it sends exactly the wrong signal to the people we most need to back.

“The Government promised to make the UK the best place in the world to build a business. I want to believe that promise. But warm words won’t keep founders here, only action will.”

The campaign adds to a growing chorus that has repeatedly cautioned the Chancellor against anti-enterprise tax rises ahead of successive fiscal events. With the next Budget on the horizon, the signatories’ message to the Treasury is blunt: stop the creep before Britain loses its founders for good.