How big is the UK’s dirty money problem? And is Starmer hiding it?

The UK’s dirty money problem is draining our communities of resources, eroding our public institutions and helping criminality flourish. But new research has just exposed just how big the problem is. Our friends at the Finance Innovation Lab estimate £325 billion of illicit finance flows— from drugs, human trafficking, tax dodging, you name it— are flowing through our shores every year. That’s more than 10% of our entire economy. And when you include the cash sloshing through the UK’s Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, it’s closer to £800 billion.

These figures are the first comprehensive attempt to quantify the scale of our dirty money problem, and show just how central the UK has become to global financial criminality. It is incredibly disappointing then, that the major international summit on dirty money that the UK was set to host in June, has now been delayed to an unspecified date in December.

Another day, another delay, another criminal's payday

The delay has not been overly surprising, given that with just weeks to go there had been almost no meaningful engagement from ministers, especially the Treasury, towards summit planning. The summit itself had practically zero public visibility, nor promotion. And some MPs, with relevant jobs in parliament, had even told us they hadn’t even heard of it!

But what’s a really worrying sign is that this signals the government still doesn’t take the UK’s role in enabling dirty money seriously. We now know that in the 6 months that they’ve kicked this can down the road, around £400 Billion will work its way through the UK’s legal and criminal finance networks. That’s equivalent to the entire NHS budget for nearly 2 years.

After all the tough talk about cleaning up politics, it is disappointing, if no longer shocking, to see Starmer’s government continue the approach of previous governments: seemingly wilful ignorance, swiss-cheese regulation and toothless enforcement.

Back in 2019, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands and others agreed to publish public registers of company owners. This represented a vital step forward in ending the regime of secrecy around shell companies, that makes UK accountants, bankers, lawyers and fixers so central to facilitating the world’s dodgiest dealings. Properly public registers would finally allow investigators, journalists, police and tax authorities to follow the money and root out the rot. Tax Justice UK helped bring about this announcement by channeling public pressure, arising off the back of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers leaks— securing hundreds of thousands of signatures, flooding the news and lobbying MPs in our thousands.

Just last year the 14 territories who have so far failed to comply breezed past their third and final deadline with little to no accountability. And what has the government done about it in the 331 days since the final deadline to comply? Absolutely nothing. Despite the fact it has the powers available to it to ensure progress on the issue as the ultimate executive power, all we’ve had is mealy mouthed statements, dithering and delay. We need UK leadership to support Overseas Territories’ economies away from facilitating illicit financial flows, so we can all benefit.

We won't waste a second

Right now, every delay is another gift to bribers, swindlers, tax dodgers and gangsters. But while it allows more dirty money to flow, we’re not going to let the opportunity go to waste. We will be using the time until the summit in December to do more public campaigning on dirty money, and activating our People’s Lobby to influence more MPs. This work is vital to ensure there’s enough pressure on this issue that the summit can’t be kicked down the road again, or worse, de-fanged or derailed by those hoping to restrict the agenda and keep inconvenient truths— like the UK’s role, and how a class of UK professional enablers are getting very rich from practically legalised criminality– off of the table.

In the first video of our new series exposing Britain’s dirty money problem, I laid out the UK’s dirty money problem. Keep an eye out for the rest of the series, which we will release on the road to December’s summit, starting with one from Professor Kojo Koram, producer of the groundbreaking Death in Westminster podcast, exposing the role offshore jurisdictions play in cleaning dirty cash. We will make sure these films are seen by hundreds of thousands of people before we reach day one of the conference. Because that’s how we shift public conversations.

At the same time our advocacy team have already spoken personally, and sent fact-filled briefings to hundreds of MPs. And they will keep going all the way to day one of the conference and beyond. We will be in touch again next month to let you know how you can help us dial up the pressure by flooding their inboxes with the ways they can take action in Parliament to put an end to Britain’s dirty money problem.

This is long‑burn campaigning— slow, strategic but with the potential to be incredibly high‑impact. Because if we win the reforms we’re fighting for, we could reclaim billions for our communities, disrupt global criminality and end the secrecy that the shadowy elite rely on to protect their impunity. Want to be a part of it? Join our mailing list below.