Farage chooses to ignore that the rich not paying their fair share of tax.
So much for being a ‘man of the people’. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has admitted he doesn’t want to tax the rich anymore, as he sets out further details of his party’s policy platform.
Answering a question from journalist Ava Santina from PoliticsJOE at a press conference, Farage said he didn’t want to raise corporation tax or taxes on wealthy people, despite trying to portray himself as being concerned with the interests of working people.
Asked about Arron Banks, a major Reform UK donor and backer of Farage, who will be heading up the party’s Doge unit alongside former party chairman Zia Yusuf, and whether Banks would be made to pay corporation tax after offshoring some of his businesses, Farage showed how his main interest is in protecting those at the top.
He said: “Sadly there will be less corporation tax in the Exchequer, as people are offshoring as we speak, there will be several dozen people today who leave London and will never come back, and this catastrophic series of tax policies, of anti-entrepreneurial policies launched by the great Jeremy Hunt now being accelerated by Labour, means people are going overseas.”
Farage claimed Banks had paid an awful lot of UK taxes, but that there would not be many ‘Arron Banks’ left in the UK in five years’ time.
The Reform UK leader of course chooses to ignore the fact that levels of poverty and inequality are growing in the UK, with the rich not paying their fair share of tax.
When it comes to wealth inequality in the UK, an estimated 14.5 million people – 22% of the UK population – live in poverty. Meanwhile the richest 1% of Britons now hold more wealth than 70% of all other Brits.
Oxfam is among those who have highlighted discrepancies in taxation and how the wealthy are favourably treated in the UK. The charity states: “For example, in 2015-16, people earning £1 million from taxable income and capital gains paid an average tax rate of 35% — the same as someone earning £100,000. A quarter of these million-pound earners paid less than 30%, and one in ten paid just 11%, similar to the rate for someone earning £15,000.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn’t have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
