Double King’s Award for Enterprise winner Mitchell Barnes, 30, founded RYSE 3D in 2017 (Image: File)
A British entrepreneur fears the worst under an Andy Burnham-led government – and has threatened to relocate to business-friendly America instead.
Mitchell Barnes, 30, founded RYSE 3D in 2017 and from its base in Warwickshire provides components to the automotive industry.
He was awarded the King’s Award for Enterprise in Innovation for the company’s pioneering work in printed production. He is now the youngest double recipient.
His company supplies high performance parts to 23 of the world’s hypercar projects and delivers complex components to experts in aerospace, defence and energy.
Orders have taken firm to nearly £5m in annual turnover, with nearly half from international orders to the US, Denmark and Latvia.
Masterminding a 2,322% increase in global sales led to Mr Mitchell’s business securing the King’s Award for International Trade, following its earlier success in 2024.
And he told the Express: “Bankrupt isn’t a scare word, it’s arithmetic. This country pays out more than it takes in, year after year, and Westminster’s only answer is to tax the wealth creators harder to fund a welfare bill that’s spiralling out of control. It’s not compassionate to run a system the country can’t afford – it’s how you end up with nothing for anyone.
“And here’s what should really worry the new Prime Minister: businesses like mine aren’t struggling. We’re profitable, we’re growing, we’ve shipped over 2.5 million parts and we hold two King’s Awards, including one for International Trade. The problem isn’t that we can’t make money in Britain. It’s that we can make far more of it somewhere else.
“Right now, the opportunity is in America. Lower taxes, cheaper energy, a government that actually wants manufacturers, and customers who want to buy. Every year the UK piles more cost onto employment and more money into a welfare system that rewards inactivity, the case for moving operations across the Atlantic gets stronger. I’m not alone in doing that maths – every ambitious manufacturer I know is doing it too.
“If I were sitting in the Business Secretary’s chair, the list would be simple. Scrap the National Insurance rise on employers – it’s a tax on jobs, nothing more. Sort out industrial energy prices, because British manufacturers pay some of the highest in the developed world and we’re competing against countries paying a fraction of it. Fix research and development tax credits so innovators are backed rather than audited to death. And make government procurement buy British-made – America does it without apology, and so should we.
“So my message to Andy Burnham is blunt: you’re not competing with the opposition, you’re competing with America, and you’re losing. Cut taxes on work, restore the principle that welfare is for people who’ve contributed or genuinely can’t, and get spending down before the markets force it.
“Britain built world-class manufacturers. The question is whether it can keep them. Give us a reason to stay and invest here. Keep going as you are, and the best of British business won’t be British for much longer.”
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