The Selsdon Manifesto dates from the Group's founding in 1973. Nearly fifty years on progress has been made in some areas, particularly in the balance between the public and private sector. Some sections however remain relevant today
Foreign Commercial Policy
Foreign commercial policy should be determined by freedom of choice: the citizen should be free to trade and invest abroad according to his assessment of commercial advantage gross of tax.
The present system of flexible exchange rates should be retained. In the taxation of foreign income, both inward and outward, nationalism is still rampant. Exchange controls and disciminatory tax regimes often frustrate the economic movement of funds either inwards or outwards or even both simultaneously. These exchange controls and fiscal restrictions represent a mercantilist philosophy that is two hundred years out of date. We particularly regret that the liberalisation of capital movements within the EEC, which was a principal attraction of membership for the UK, has been offset in advance by the virtual abolition of the sterling area.
The freedom of capital movements is no less important in principle as a contribution to market efficiency than the freedom of trade. The realisation of this principle would require a major change of conventional attitudes