Wealth tax demand

Unite delegate Kathy Smith gave a barnstorming speech at TUC Congress on Monday (September 8) as she moved a composite on a wealth tax, one of Unite?s key policy demands.

She slammed the Labour government for failing to deliver for workers, highlighting their broken promises ? from a return to austerity to attacks on pensioners, public service workers and more.

?If these attacks keep coming, if Labour?s message to us is that workers will always pay the price, but the really wealthy are left untouched, they?ve got a problem, that?s for sure,? she said.

Kathy said that such an approach would risk paving the way to a Reform victory and would leave the door to no. 10 open for its nefarious leader Nigel Farage.

?[Labour] will be responsible for what follows, and they will never be forgiven,? she added.

Kathy called on the Labour government to turn its attention to tackling the massive concentration of wealth built up by the richest 1 per cent, which include profiteering corporations and the very highest earners.

She went on to note that while the government continues to claim the country is in crisis because of a financial black hole, it is totally ignoring the real crisis ? that ?the top 50 families have more wealth than half our population! Let that sink in?.

?It is a crisis when the profit margins of the corporations rocket up by 30 per cent when the rest of us are living with the effects of the cost-of-living crisis,? Kathy said.

She told Congress that a simple one per cent tax on the wealthiest one per cent would raise ?25bn, wiping out the fiscal black hole with one fell stroke.

Kathy argued that such a move would be popular ? she cited a poll, from the Daily Express no less, which showed that more than 80 per cent of people back a wealth tax.

She added that a wealth tax would also tackle the threat posed by Reform and Nigel Farage.

Kath concluded by saying that the trade union movement must hold Labour accountable.

?We have to fight back together,? she said.

The composite was carried.

By Hajera Blagg

Photo by Mark Thomas