‘We should not tax work more than wealth’

Tax wealth, get growth.  A thoughtful piece yesterday by Jeevun Sandher MP set out the economic journey the UK has been on from the world of my parents’ boomer cohort to his millennial generation. He is right that we have shifted from an economy that rewards work to one that rewards wealth — and we have been slow to reckon with the consequences.

Those consequences are now impossible to ignore. The productive economy has been squeezed, while the gap between the ultra-wealthy and everyone else has widened into a chasm. For too long, this transformation escaped proper scrutiny. Before the 2008 crash, rising living standards masked the rot. But over the past 15 years, the weeds planted in the Thatcher era have flourished, choking off broad-based prosperity.

The response to that crash only deepened the problem. Coalition and Tory governments chose cuts over structural reform—opting to shrink the state rather than rebalance the economy. The result is the bind we find ourselves in today with weakened foundations, creaking infrastructure, and an economy heavily tilted toward extraction rather than production.

READ MORE: ‘Tax wealth, get growth’

That Sandher is making this case matters. He is not a figure of the Labour left but sits firmly in the party’s mainstream. And yet, if you listen to some comfortably insulated commentators, any attempt to rebalance the economy is dismissed as quasi-communism. That caricature is wearing thin. Across Labour — and in the lived experience of millions—there is a growing recognition that the current model is not working.

Taxing unproductive wealth more than productive work is not radicalism; it is a core Labour principle. It will, inevitably, be attacked as the “politics of envy” — a charge designed to shut down debate. It plays on a deeply embedded belief that with enough effort, anyone might strike it rich. But as that promise slips further out of reach for more people, the ground is shifting. There is now space for a more honest conversation — not just about how much we tax, but what we tax, and why.

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None of this will be easy. The interests that benefit from the status quo are powerful and well-organised. They will resist any move toward a fairer settlement. They will try to shut down any argument about the benefits of taxation — especially of wealth. The real question is whether Labour has the resolve to see this through — to rebalance the economy and make it work, as promised by both Tony Blair and Jeremy Corbyn, for the many rather than the few.

Labour needs to be confident in this argument in the face of fierce opposition. But we can be because not only are we right but voters agree we are right. We can stand up to the onslaught of the right wing echo chamber by keeping that thought at the centre of everything we do and say on this topic. If we can do that, then we really can deliver on the change we promised. 

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