{"id":729268,"date":"2026-01-29T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729268\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:00:15","slug":"labour-government-splashes-750000-for-businesses-in-south-africa-while-hammering-uk-firms-guido-fawkes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/729268\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour Government Splashes \u00a3750,000 for Businesses in South Africa While Hammering UK Firms \u2013 Guido Fawkes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Foreign Office is splashing out \u00a3750,000 to support small to medium-sized businesses in South Africa, according to research by the TaxPayers\u2019 Alliance. It never ends\u2026<\/p>\n<p>The programme began last November \u2013 months after Starmer promised to cut waste in the foreign aid budget \u2013 and runs until 2029. The FDCO <a href=\"https:\/\/devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk\/programme\/GB-GOV-1-400324\/summary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">explains<\/a> the taxpayer cash will go towards:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe SME Invest Programme aims to unlock finance for SMEs with high potential to create jobs in economically excluded South African provinces. It will provide tailored advisory services, investor matching, and catalytic capital to de-risk investments\u2026Supporting 60-80 SMEs, the programme will support 5,000 jobs, with a proactive focus on women\u2019s economic empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Meanwhile at home, SMEs have been crying out over Reeves\u2019 hikes to NICs and minimum wage, with the (un)Employment Rights Bill set to hammer <a href=\"https:\/\/order-order.com\/2025\/10\/28\/exc-four-out-of-five-small-businesses-say-rayner-union-bill-will-stop-them-hiring\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">firms<\/a> even further. \u2018Global Britain\u2019\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Foreign Office is splashing out \u00a3750,000 to support small to medium-sized businesses in South Africa, according to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3090],"tags":[51,1700,126064,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-729268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-fcdo","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115980168340369847","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}