Because I’m a rock and roll animal, I was invited to an event in London called Time to Reset: Unlocking Growth & Sovereignty Through Digital Competition. It wasn’t really clear to me why a grubby HTML monkey like me was invited, or what it was really about, but as it was in the Financial Times building and had some pretty heavy-hitters from the UK regulatory scene speaking, I thought it would be good to attend.
After some initial discussion about A.I. (which BY LAW must occur to get journalists and politicians to care), we got to the meat of the event: a new report called Bottleneck Britain: How digital competition could power UK growth and sovereignty from the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The thrust of the laudably concise report was music to my ears: a call for bolder tech regulation by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
We recommend the UK government publishes an updated strategic steer for the CMA. This should clarify that proactive, rapid and bold enforcement is pro-growth. The priority should be reducing barriers to entry for competitors, not maximising inward investment from incumbents.
Our previous Prime Minister, Keir Stamer, was a weak leader and desperate not to alienate big U.S. businesses. His Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, forced out the Chair of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority to step down only two years into his five year term, and replaced him with former Amazon UK boss Doug Gurr “in a bid to boost growth and support the economy”.
The business department said that Reynolds had “accepted” [Marcus] Bokkerink’s resignation and thanked him for his work… It added that the government would soon begin consulting on “new growth-focused strategic steer to the CMA”.
It is understood that Bokkerink’s departure is meant to send a pro-growth signal to businesses, as Reeves and Reynolds attend Davos to meet global business leaders.
Putting a former Amazon chief in charge of reigning in Big Tech might be the reason for the CMA’s recent timidity. This could explain why the CMA recently accepted Apple and Googles’ “voluntary commitments” not to be beastly to competitors, even though this flaccid outcome was not even mentioned as an option when the two behemoths were given Strategic Market Designation.
But what made this report especially interesting was that the author, Roa Powell, had interviewed CMA staff, including Marcus Bokkerink, the ousted Chair:
We are grateful to officials at the Competition and Markets Authority who engaged with this research. And we would like to thank Marcus Bokkerink, Kip Meek and Mike Walker for sharing reflections on their time working on DMCCA implementation within the CMA.
And by complete coincidence, Mr Bokkerink was at the event and asked a question. He was later chatting convivially with Will Hayter, Executive Director for Digital Markets at the CMA, who said in his keynote speech
The IPPR report recommends a new strategic steer. That is a question for the government, and you will have seen the Secretary of State’s comments in the Times last week, in response. But the government’s broader comment in response to the report was that it ‘continues to back the CMA to use all its tools as robustly as it considers necessary to improve competition and benefit consumers, businesses and the UK economy’. We welcome that support.
I couldn’t help wondering if the presence of ex-members and current CMA bigwigs indicates that the regulator is signalling to our new Prime Minister that it wants to be unmuzzled. I certainly hope so, and that the new administration listens.
Talking of politicians, there was a speech by a Member of Parliament, Chi Onwurah MP. Dame Chi is one of the few MPs who was an engineer before a political career, as opposed to a few years at a policy factory after an Oxbridge degree in PPE. She spoke of her Personal Data (Digital Twin) Bill [PDF] which was to receive its first reading on 9 September, and seeks to regulate surveillance capitalism profiling people (making a “digital twin”).
In the Commons, Dame Chi said
We are told that Governments are too slow and too stupid to shape tech, and that the market knows best—the market will ensure the best, most innovative products and services are delivered to the people who need them and keep them safe in the process. I hope that we can all agree now that neolibertarian complacency has not worked.
The tech giants are hubs of amazing innovation but, as my Committee has heard, they are controlled by a small number of extremely wealthy men without the usual corporate governance or competitive constraints. We need to limit their power with our democratic power to protect our citizens.
It’s a “ten minute Bill“, so it has no chance of becoming law, but it is a way for subjects to be introduced to the legislature and to gauge support. The Bill will receive its second Reading on 13 November 2026. I think it needs some tweaks before that; it currently provides an option for Big Tech to seek “consent” which will probably lead to more “cookie banner”-style Consent Theatre (“Let us profile you, or pay for access”). I’ve written to Dame Chi about this (and to invite her to my For A Better Web podcast).
The whole day was encouraging, and I got to meet lots of movers and shakers, including the splendid Megan Kirkwood and Open Web Advocacy operative “The Hepcat”, AKA James Heppell. And I was given a glass of red wine on the FT roof, loomed over by St Pauls.
Stay tuned for more updates from the Land of Regulatory Suits. The fun never stops!