I love working on tax justice because it has the power to truly reshape our country, and the lives of everyday people, for the better. And people know it. When I talk to people they always have something to say about taxes. Whether its anger at how business rates are killing their small shop and the high-street its on whilst Amazon pay next to nothing, or their frustration at council tax going up while services keep getting worse, or pride at what their taxes do to support others, usually capped with irritation that the rich and greedy can opt out of paying their fair share too.
The UK’s two-tier tax system— where the super-rich and corporations get sweetheart deals, carveouts, opt-outs and blind-eyes, and leave the rest of us to keep the show on the road— serves to enrich a tiny billionaire minority whilst impoverishing so many of us. But our democratic system, our media landscape and the public narrative has been so thoroughly captured by the same elite few that questioning this stitch up (let alone ending it!) feels almost impossible. As one lady asked me recently, “why does it feel like everything we want, they do the opposite?”
This week we’re excited to tell you about two major projects we’re launching to find out, and build a new blueprint for breaking the deadlock. Together, these projects form the most ambitious tax‑justice research programmes in the UK in a decade. One tackles the public narrative and roots our asks in the needs of working class communities; the other tackles the political system. Both are essential to finally make tax justice a reality.
For more than a decade, Tax Justice UK has campaigned for policies, and seen them enacted including: defending the Digital Services Tax; doubling the private jet tax; raising corporation tax and capital gains tax; securing the abolition of non‑dom status; and winning a windfall on oil and gas companies. But despite our best efforts and overwhelming public support— 75% of the public and 80% of UK millionaires support our proposal— no government has yet embraced the idea of a wealth tax. Successive governments have also failed to take on tax havens, or taxing mega-corporations fairly. Why?
Why aren’t our politicians delivering?
Practically, it’s politicians, not economists or campaigners, that enact tax policy. That’s why we’re teaming up with the Fraser of Allander Institute, at Strathclyde University to conduct groundbreaking research that directly asks politicians of all political colours what is stopping them from supporting or implementing a wealth tax. And whether it’s fear of backlash, internal party discipline, lobbying pressure, or outdated assumptions something is keeping wealth taxes off the table.
Through in‑depth interviews with MPs across Westminster and Holyrood, we’re mapping the real and perceived barriers, to understand what evidence could shift minds. This work will be used to zero in our advocacy efforts on the right pressure points. We’re hopeful that this focus will turn the huge momentum we’ve built in the last decade into a winning campaign.
Why have our demands not yet unified the 99.9%?
The policies we’re promoting will benefit 99.9% of the UK, so why are only 75% currently supportive. Whilst asking politicians why they are not doing what we want them to do is important, we also want to make sure our tax asks are rooted in the needs and demands of working class communities across the country. That’s why we’re also launching a second project to take our conversation about tax out into communities, and ask how a fundamental shift in the unfairness in our tax system could not only help people’s lives materially, but help heal recent divisions.
The super‑rich have spent millions stoking hatred and division— turning working‑class communities against one another, and scapegoating immigrants, asylum seekers, disabled people, and racial, sexual, religious and gender minorities. We think a new conversation about tax and the economy can help bring people together across identities and be the basis of class solidarity.
We already know that talking about the real solutions resonates with most people regardless of their political leanings or personal identities. But over the next two years, we’ll work in communities across the UK to listen, to build a new story, strengthen our messaging and make it as effective as possible in building multi‑ethnic working‑class solidarity, rebuilding democratic trust, and unifying and galvanising people to act. This is what it will take to build a People’s Lobby for tax justice, strong enough to force politicians to listen to us, and not the lobbyists.
This kind of deep, strategic work takes resources. The anti‑tax lobby is backed by billionaires. We’re backed by people who believe in fairness. If you can, please consider becoming a regular donor to help us build the evidence, strategy, and power to win the next decade of tax justice.