The Isle of Man Chamber of Commerce has said it feels ‘misquoted and misrepresented’ by a petition that calls for a vote of no confidence in MHK’s and CoMin.
The Chamber last week said it had no confidence in the Isle of Man Governments 2024 budget and thinks that the Gov are ‘in denial’ regarding the budget.
However, since a petition has been gathering traction, it wishes to clarify it’s feelings on the elected representatives and that it is not connected to the petition.
‘Misquoted and misrepresented’
The Chamber has released a statement:
“Firstly, we feel that Chamber has been misquoted and misrepresented, and we are deeply concerned that this could cause damage to our members and all local businesses”.
Although the Chamber has not given any context as to how its been misquoted and misrepresented, nor does it say how businesses could be ‘damaged’.
It added that it wants to “clear that the reference to a vote of no confidence in our open letter was only in relation to the Budget and was representative of our members’ feedback. At no point have we called for a vote of no confidence in CoMin or any MHKs”.
The petition
The petition, which at the time of us noticing last week had attracted 200 signatures, it has now increased to over 1,400.
The petition, on change.org, was started by a person identifying themselves by the name Jonathan Smith, the petition criticises the government imposing a 10% tax increase for working people while failing to hit the very wealthy.
They say: ‘This week 200 Isle of Man business owners or operators who are members of the Island’s Chamber of Commerce voted overwhelmingly against the Isle of Man’s Budget and publicly expressed absolutely no confidence in the Islands tax strategy and its Council of Ministers.
‘Many individual taxpayers are also very concerned about the impact of increased personal income taxes with the introduction of a new higher rate of tax (an effective 10% increase in the Islands normal rate of income tax). But this new high rate of tax does not apply to traditional high earning taxpayers as it might in other jurisdictions but essentially to most Island residents earning over the Islands living wage.’
Empty Noise
While the time since the Budget has seen MHKs come out to ask constituents for their opinion on the future of the Alfred Cannan administration, the petition’s creator says this has been ‘a lot of empty noise’ since no member of Tynwald seems willing to stand up and push for a vote.
They added: “This is despite clear public feedback from businesses and individuals that they have no confidence in this current House. If you support the calling of a vote of no confidence in the Council of Ministers to test public opinion then hopefully one of our highly paid MHKs might actually do something about it. Please register your vote here.”
To clarify, the public petition calling for a no confidence vote in the government isn’t the Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber just has zero confidence in the Treasury Minister’s budget.
Government Spin Doctors ask media to update stories
In an unprecedented move, the Government’s Press Team contacted a number of local media outlets actually asking for coverage of the Chamber of Commerce’s statement to be created.
“There’s some concern from this side that the statement yesterday evening from the Chamber of Commerce is not being covered.”
IOM Government Comms Team
An email from the Head of Communications said, “There’s some concern from this side that the statement yesterday evening from the Chamber of Commerce is not being covered.
“I think it is reasonable to say that this represents a material shift in the story about the public petition for a vote of no confidence in the Council of Ministers.”
Manx.News understands that the email was not only sent to Manx.News, but was also sent to local publishers and at least two local radio stations.
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