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Nation•Cymru A news service by the people of Wales, for the people of Wales.

Opinion

Don’t buy the lie: Reform UK is for the super-yachts, not the semi-detached

By Mark Mansfield
Reform's newest MP, Sarah Pochin warned millionaires ‘would leave’ if asked to pay a fairer share.

Owen Williams

Reform UK like to present themselves as champions of the “working man.” They rail against elites and promise to speak for those left behind. Yet when it comes to asking the super-rich to pay more tax, the mask slips.

Their newest MP, Sarah Pochin warned LBC that millionaires ‘would leave’ if asked to pay a fairer share. Reform and its supporters frame this as an act of economic self-preservation – as if the UK State must tiptoe around the feelings of the super-rich to avoid some imaginary supranational catastrophe.

But let’s be clear: how did those millionaires and billionaires get so wealthy in the first place?

Off the backs of working people.

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Osmosis

You don’t become obscenely rich by osmosis. You don’t wake up with a billion pounds through hard work alone. You get there by harvesting the labour of others – by taking a share of what workers produce, paying them less than the value they create, and pocketing the difference.

That’s not an attack on business or enterprise. It’s an honest description of how wealth accumulates in a capitalist economy.

Even the most “self-made” tycoon depends on vast numbers of employees and a functioning society. Roads, hospitals, schools, policing, courts, contracts and stable markets – they all underpin the wealth-generation process. None of it is conjured out of thin air by sheer will or genius.

Take the internet. It wasn’t the brainchild of a billionaire in a garage. It began as a US government project, funded by taxpayers, designed to improve military communications. That publicly funded infrastructure is now the backbone of global commerce and communication. It enables the immense riches of the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, whose companies depend on it to reach customers, coordinate manufacturing and deliver services.

This is true of countless industries. Pharmaceuticals rely on decades of publicly funded research. Financial services depend on courts to enforce contracts and police to deter crime. Manufacturing depends on transport networks and reliable power grids. Even the corner shop relies on local councils to maintain streets and collect rubbish.

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Collective

Wealth isn’t created in isolation. It is social. It is collective. The billionaire doesn’t build the roads to their factories, educate their entire workforce, or maintain the legal system that enforces their contracts. Society does.

So when the wealthiest among us are asked to pay more tax, it isn’t confiscation or cruelty. It’s recognition of the debt they owe to the system that made their wealth possible.

When billionaires threaten to leave rather than pay a little more, it isn’t “patriotism”. It’s extortion. It’s a declaration that their personal enrichment matters more than the society that enabled it.

We need to stop pretending this is a noble stance.

If you truly stand for the working man, you don’t design tax policy to appease people who would abandon the country at the first hint of responsibility. You make sure those who have gained the most from our collective effort pay their fair share back into it.

Because the truth is simple.

Payback

A fair tax system isn’t punishment. It’s payback. It’s the price of civilised society – a recognition that no one builds vast wealth alone. It’s an obligation to return a share of that success to the people, the communities and the systems that made it possible. And it’s long past time we called out politicians like Nigel Farage and Sarah Pochin who claim to speak for workers while bending over backwards to protect the privileges of the wealthiest – asking ordinary people to sacrifice while the rich threaten to flee at the first hint of responsibility.

Because if you won’t stand up to those interests, you’re not for the working man at all.

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18 comments

Chris Hale

Great rebuttal of the apologists for the greedy.

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Amir

We need a 2% wealth tax. Paying our due taxes should be a badge of honour not a burden. Yes, I work for the NHS and I know how much it consumes and I will argue it is still not enough. But when I needed the NHS it was there for me and got me through a really scary period and there were many good people in there who pulled me up without asking what I do.

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Rhufawn Jones

Ffwrdd a chi 'te Mae cyfoeth heb gyfrifoldeb yn anathema. Dylid dysgu gan yr hen uchelwyr gynt a gynhaliai bro, pan roedd gwedd sagrafenaidd ar fywyd. Mae gwir gwaldgarwr yn cynnal gwlad a bro, nid byw yn fras oddi arni fel gele.

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TheWoodForTheTrees

I thought the Internet was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in the UK? Anyway, apart from that an excellent adjustment of perspective. People need to stop believing that a progressive tax system, where very rich people pay their fair share of tax will be the end for the country's economy. Let's not forget how much public money is funnelled into private companies for various projects. Just look at Richard Branson's rail contracts, the PPE contracts and the amount of American tax payers money awarded to Elon Musk. It goes on all over the world and it's payback time as far as I'm concerned. If rich people really want to leave this country rather than pay their fair share, as Mark Thomas (comedian and activist) would say "we'll drive you to the airport."

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Owen Williams

Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web – the Internet is the underlying infrastructure.

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TheWoodForTheTrees

Is "which came first" a stupid question?

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In reply to TheWoodForTheTrees

Owen Williams

Not at all – it’s a good question. The internet came first. Without it, the World Wide Web couldn’t exist. Think of the internet as the underlying network that connects computers. The Web is just one way of using it. For example, email uses the internet too, but it doesn’t rely on “www” in a browser window.

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andy w

Some people are heavily influenced by the latest social media star who has been paid to endorse products. Well managed economies such as Belgium / Germany have clear focuses and do not deviate / react when individuals such as Trump get elected as they are not obsessed by USA!

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Steve D.

It's simple - vote for Reform and keep being ripped off by the rich. A country where equality is dead and the soul of Cymru is lost. Or vote for Plaid and open up the opportunity to bring about a fresh new future. One where we make those who profited from our labour, time and society's benefits, pay more.

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John Ellis

'Or vote for Plaid and open up the opportunity to bring about a fresh new future.' That's well put, because 'a fresh new future' is indeed an opportunity, and not any sort of guarantee. And hitherto one of the reasons mustered against independence is the risk that its consequences might turn out to be a detriment as far as ordinary Welsh citizens were concerned. And that's not an irrational argument: it's worth remembering that the Irish republic experienced a full half century of national austerity before achieving the prosperity which so many of its citizens have experienced in recent decades. Understandable, perhaps, if rather a lot of Welsh people felt that it was safer, in Hilaire Belloc's words, to 'always keep a-hold of Nurse for fear of finding something worse'. But arguably the 'something worse' is already with us. It's now eighteen years since the global financial crash occurred, and while the rest of Europe seems to be recovering from its consequences, the UK manifestly hasn't. Average household incomes are still pretty much what they were in 2008 even though prices aren't, our public services are on their knees, and even though we've got a new and different government, we're looking to be saddled with ongoing austerity as far into the future as it's possible to see. And in that gloomy context, it seems to me to be at least reasonable to begin to look at the independence issue differently.

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Y Cymro

More Reform UK hypocrisy. The amount of freebies Nigel Farage has received is jaw dropping. A man of the people. Do me a favour. He is a corrupt Conservative with his snout in the trough. Only a fool would trust this egotist. Don't be that fool.

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Felicity

An excellent description of how the public and private sector are inter-dependent, but soundbites are the political reality. Faragist/Trumpian slogans are designed to capture peoples attention, where lengthy explanations do not. The other parties need to start by stating that taxes are good for society as a whole, and stop being so defensive about them.

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andy w

A lot of economies are led / influenced by their lead logistics organisation(s). In 1990s i worked for Quebecs Air Canada. When they launched their credit card, all non operational staff in certain airports stopped work and managed the launch as for every person who signed up they had enough points for a free flight, then for every friend signed up they had more points. I had Lufthansa staff discount for 14 years after leaving the airline industry - double points on credit card spend and travelled on a special class that was significantly worse than economy - sat by toilets / served meals last / bumped from flights if overbooked etc. Dublins economy is strong and growing and hopefully Wales will share the benefits https://nation.cymru/news/wales-and-ireland-commit-to-new-agreement/#comment-190103 The debate needs to move from giving Farage the spotlight to how can Wales create well paid jobs in locations such as Aberdare / Aberafan / Machynlleth / Rhyl and get behind the entrepreneurs behind https://businessnewswales.com/historic-bodlondeb-to-become-entrepreneurial-hub-for-conwy/

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Neil Anderson

Billionaires don't take their money with them - it's been sent on years earlier, safely if often inappropriately invested in foreign parts - oil and gas, logging, mineral extraction, armaments... And all other forms of profiteering, exploitation and speculation. We are better off without them. We need to focus on how we can make it better for all, not just for them.

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Badger

Before it happens the world should start a conversation about how wealthy any one individual should be. Could the OECD agree a trillion dollar cap on personal wealth? Would the right still argue this is a socialist policy or must there be a limit to prevent someone becoming a unelected de facto world president?

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Pete

Yup, but the negative campaigning has to stop as time and again it has been shown not to work. Lab, PC etc but set out a real positive vision for Wales. We've been waiting 25 years for one and we are in the last chance saloon...

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Replying to Chris Hale Cancel

Great rebuttal of the apologists for the greedy.

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