\n<\/p>\n
Rachel Reeves should bring in wealth taxes at the autumn budget to deliver the change promised by Labour at the election and battle the rising threat from Reform, the UK\u2019s most senior union chief has said.<\/p>\n
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), urged the chancellor to \u201cstay the course\u201d on her plans to invest in the country, adding that the government should not be afraid of adopting \u201ca little bit\u201d of economic leftwing populism.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the TUC\u2019s annual gathering this weekend, he called Nigel Farage an \u201cabsolute political opportunist\u201d who could be challenged by Labour demonstrating that it was genuinely on the side of working people, through better employment rights and a fairer tax system.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Guardian, Nowak said: \u201cIt is clear that we need long-term fixes, and so the chancellor has to be prepared to look at tax. We think that there\u2019s a public mood out there for a grown up conversation about what that means. And the crucial thing is that those with the broader shoulders are asked to pay a fairer share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polling for the TUC found that a 2% annual wealth tax paid by individuals with assets worth more than \u00a310m would be supported by 68% of people, with 22% against. This rose to 75% among 2024 Labour voters now leaning towards Reform.<\/p>\n
The poll also found that increasing capital gains tax to the same level as income tax was supported by 51% of people, with 34% against. This rose to 57% among Labour backers now tempted to vote for Farage\u2019s party.<\/p>\n
There was even greater support for a package of tax rises including wealth taxes, higher taxes on gambling firms and a windfall tax on the profits of banks and other financial institutions, with 68% supporting the proposals as a whole, while just 23% opposed to them.<\/p>\n
The TUC calculated that the wealth taxes could raise an extra \u00a336bn a year, while a gambling tax could bring in \u00a33bn more and a bank surcharge could raise between \u00a320bn and \u00a350bn over the next four years depending on the level it was set at, between 16% and 35%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government\u2019s got to stay the course. A little bit of economic left-wing populism would go a long way, because clearly that\u2019s where the public mood is. On tax, on workers rights, people want to see change,\u201d Nowak said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor far too many people, \u2018change\u2019 still feels like a slogan and not actually their lived reality. They\u2019re still in the midst of a cost of living crisis. They still haven\u2019t seen the improvements come through in public services.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery decision the government takes to demonstrate it\u2019s on the side of working people is the right thing to do \u2026 No one thought the economy was going to be fixed overnight. But the worst thing the chancellor could do, having made that big upfront investment in the budget last year, is to pull back from that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think the balance is right at the moment. I think we\u2019ve got a tax system that\u2019s very good at taxing work, less effective at taxing wealth. That\u2019s really the big inequality that we\u2019ve seen opening up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t take away from the fact we know we need to get growth into the economy, growth that makes a difference in people\u2019s pockets. But this budget, if the choice is between fair taxes and cuts to the public services, we know whose side the chancellor should be on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nowak, who has previously called Farage a \u201cpolitical fraud and hypocrite\u201d who was \u201ccosplaying\u201d as a working-class champion in order to win votes, doubled down on his view that the Reform UK leader was a political opportunist.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigel Farage is, as always, talking up whose side he is on. [But] he\u2019s a political snake oil salesman. The gap between the rhetoric and what he\u2019s actually prepared to deliver is massive. We have got a job to do, to show the gap between the rhetoric and reality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that we challenge Reform, and the way that a Labour government challenges it, is by demonstrating that they genuinely are on the side of working people.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, in a warning to the left, he said: \u201cFrankly, I don\u2019t think the alternative is Jeremy Corbyn in No 10. It\u2019s Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch in No 10. And that should fill anybody who cares about the rights of working people, about our public services with absolute dread.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rachel Reeves should bring in wealth taxes at the autumn budget to deliver the change promised by Labour at the election and battle the rising threat from Reform, the UK\u2019s most senior union chief has said. Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), urged the chancellor to \u201cstay the course\u201d on her<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2718,689,3355,364,838,1580,101,1162,2719,3329,5215],"class_list":{"0":"post-18942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-avoid","9":"tag-chief","10":"tag-needed","11":"tag-people","12":"tag-reform","13":"tag-spending","14":"tag-tax","15":"tag-threat","16":"tag-union","17":"tag-wealth","18":"tag-working"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}