‘The super rich in this country are laughing all the way to the bank’
Zarah Sultana MP, co-founder of Your Party, has perfectly summed up why the UK’s economic system is not working for the vast majority of the population.
On yesterday night’s episode of BBC Question Time, Sultana said people are dissatisfied with what the status quo and “establishment politicians” are offering.
She said people are fed up with “establishment politicians” and a status quo where “their lives are harder, their wages are stagnated, their bills are increasing, and at the same time the super rich in this country are laughing all the way to the bank.”
Sultana pointed out that the top 50 richest families in the UK hold more wealth than 70% of the population, and that since 2010 billionaires have tripled their wealth.”
On the cost of energy prices, she said: “Everyone can see it, their energy bills are increasing and energy companies are recording record profits.”
“So it’s an economic system that is fundamentally broken.”
Sultana said that from Labour, the Conservatives and Reform, “you’ll get the same neoliberal politics, the same economic system”.
She said that trickle down economics has failed, noting the record levels of inequality, child poverty and the simultaneous surge in billionaire wealth.
In a heated exchange about funding public services, Sultana tore apart Reform MP Danny Kruger after he claimed the party is challenging the “incumbent system” in local government.
Kruger then took a swipe at the left’s “excessive politics”, to which Sultana responded: “Excessive politics? Not having austerity Danny, which killed over 300,000 people and has cut the average life by half a year.”
Kruger said: “We need public spending to be under control.”
“What does that mean?,” Sultana responded.
Kruger argued against “pumping more and more into the welfare system”, saying it fuels “long-term generational poverty”. “We need an economy that actually works,” he said.
Sultana pushed back, asking: “How will austerity grow the economy Danny? That’s not Keynesian economics is it.”
She instead back equalising capital gains tax with income tax to generate £17 billion a year and a wealth tax on assets of £10 million to raise £24 billion a year.
To applause from the audience, Sultana said: “The magic money tree exists, it’s in the City of London and it’s with the billionaires, but what you find is the lack of political will, because these parties are bankrolled by the billionaires, so they’re definitely not going to tax them.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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