We’ve had a busy week making the case for a fairer tax system at the Labour conference in Liverpool.
Our head of advocacy, Rachael Henry, and our executive director, Robert Palmer, spent three days meeting politicians, government advisors, journalists and trade unionists – sharing our tax reform policies.
Robert argued for higher taxes on the very wealthy at an event on Tuesday with the tax minister, James Murray MP:
The talk, organised by the New Statesman and the new Centre for the Analysis of Taxation, explored the tax reform options open to the government.
We’re in the media
Robert has also been on TV and radio.
He spoke to Jeremy Kyle on TalkTV on Tuesday, arguing that the government must invest more in our crumbling public services.
He was on LBC News setting out how taxing the very rich more is a real option open to the government at the next Budget.
He was also briefly on Al Jazeera reacting to Sir Keir Starmer’s speech on Tuesday.
Our reaction
Starmer used his speech to set out a broad vision of the UK’s future, without many specific details.
We were quick to react. Robert’s full statement is here and was covered on The i and Yahoo News’s liveblogs.
We believe the only way to get our future back is by taxing the super rich and wealthy companies more – and investing the revenue in key services.
Convincing decision makers
Rachael and Robert spent three full days convincing delegates that the government does have options when it comes to tax reform – and that the public massively supports these.
They could raise an extra £60 billion a year if they implemented our ten wealth tax policies.
This would be enough to reverse the decline of our public services and infrastructure – and get the UK back on course.
We’ll keep making this case to the government in the run up to the Budget in October, when the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will set out her spending and tax plans.
Wealth tax pressure
Our allies were also busy at the conference trying to convince the government on wealth taxes.
Adopting our demand for an annual wealth tax, 38 Degrees have just launched a petition insisting the government introduce a new wealth tax to raise money for public services.
The campaign group lit up Liverpool, projecting their wealth tax message onto famous buildings.
Meanwhile, Green New Deal Rising and a coalition of groups amplified the call for taxing extreme wealth.
We’re leading a broad and growing coalition of campaign groups, trade unions, business leaders and charities pushing for wealth taxes.