More than 120 business owners have signed a letter to The Times newspaper calling for change.
“Labour has shown it has changed… We should now give it the chance to change the country,” the letter says.
Jack Kirkland, chairman of Bowmer & Kirkland, a £1.2bn family-owned building company in Derbyshire, is one of three business owners in the construction industry to sign the letter.
The signatories also include Eleanor Deely, joint managing director of Coventry-based Deeley Group, a £42m-turnover family construction business.
The third construction boss to sign the letter is Tony Carney, co-owner, co-founder and managing director of Liverpool-based Huyton Asphalt Civils, a business he set up with James Blennerhassett and Scott Walker in 2015 and which last year turned over £27m.
In the letter, Kirkland, Deely, Carney and the other signatories say: “We, as leaders and investors in British business, believe it is time for a change. For too long, our economy has been beset by instability, stagnation and a lack of long-term focus.
“The UK has the potential to be one of the strongest economies in the world. A lack of political stability and the absence of consistent economic strategy have held it back. The country has been denied the skills and infrastructure it needs to flourish.
“We are looking for a government that will partner fiscal discipline with a long-term growth strategy, working in partnership with the private sector to drive innovation and investment to build digital and physical capital and fix our skills system. This is the only way to put us on track for sustained productivity growth.
“Labour has shown it has changed and wants to work with business to achieve the UK’s full economic potential. We should now give it the chance to change the country and lead Britain into the future. We are in urgent need of a new outlook to break free from the stagnation of the past decade and we hope by taking this public stand we might persuade others of that need too.”
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