On Tuesday 28 January, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage hosted a lavish dinner party. But don’t be too upset that you missed it. Entry to this illustrious evening of fine-dining and caviar required a ticket costing a princely sum of up to £25,000.
This event, held at the Mayfair private members club Oswald’s, hosted numerous wealthy individuals and ex-Tory donors, who are fleeing the crisis-ridden Conservative Party like rats from a sinking ship.
With up to 90 guests, the evening raised over £1 million for the party, and there are plans for larger fundraisers in the future – including a planned ‘Reform Festival’, which I’ve no doubt will pale in comparison to the RCP’s Revolution Festival!
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Despite Farage’s occasional pot-shots at the rich and big corporations, and his pledges to stand up for ordinary people, his party is welcoming these super-rich members of the establishment with open arms! Could it be that Nigel is having us on?
Reform is steadily becoming a rallying point for the right wing in Britain. Currently, the party is polling at 26 percent, outstripping the Tories (23 percent) and Labour (22 percent) according to a poll published in January.
Like Trump, Farage is cynically tapping into class anger at the establishment, whilst whipping up vile racism to sow division amongst the working class. And with billionaire backing, Farage’s poison is given plenty of airtime.
But I think revolutionary communists can take inspiration from the fundraising efforts of this plucky underdog party.
Unlike them, the RCP has no access to the spare change of the billionaire class. But with the dedication and sacrifice of ordinary workers and youth, we can build a real alternative to their right-wing agenda.
As the saying goes, “the truth is revolutionary”. The Communist speaks the truth on the matter: Farage, his donors, and the entire establishment need to be swept away!
Josh Upton, Manchester
Look out for your peers!
When a member of the working class loses their job, the consequences can be devastating. It can lead to debt, poverty, homelessness, and severe health issues.
There are none of these issues for former Labour MPs Thangam Debbonaire and Jonathan Ashworth, however.
Having been kicked out of parliament in last year’s general election – in large part due Labour’s disgraceful position on Gaza – Debonnaire has now been made a Life Peer in the House of Lords by Keir Starmer!
She can now claim up to £361 per day of ‘attendance’, meaning that for an average 145 days that the chamber sits, she could claim over £50,000, tax-free, per year. And that’s before you add in the travel expenses and subsidised restaurants!
Ashworth meanwhile – having also been dumped out of office and replaced with a pro-Palestinian candidate – has since secured a lucrative gig presenting a political show on LBC Radio, while also making seemingly endless appearances as a commentator on BBC and Sky News. It’s a nice life for some!
All of this shows that these representatives of the ruling class exist in a different stratosphere from the ordinary workers who actually keep the world running. The only way we will truly see the back of them is through revolution.
Andy Rudlin, Farringdon
‘Death and taxes’
Benjamin Franklin once famously quipped that “in this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes”. But this principle seems to be applied very selectively indeed!
HMRC estimates that last year Britain lost £36 billion in unpaid taxes, with – surprise, surprise – giant multinationals being the main offenders.
In 2021, the seven biggest American tech firms dodged over £2 billion in British taxes. Yet the dreaded tax collectors have been keeping busy with bigger priorities, clearly.
I recently lost my minimum-wage job after being victimised by an abusive boss. I’d been taxed monthly based on an annual earnings estimate which was no longer accurate, given my income stopped part-way through the tax year.
And so, I requested a refund from HMRC for overpaid taxes. The letter I’ve received in response is dated just two days after I submitted my request, and makes no reference whatsoever to my situation. It simply says, “we’re unable to deal with your repayment at this time”.
Is it any wonder working-class people are voting for demagogues like Trump and Reform UK, who promise them a bonfire of tax regulations, while those on the left suggest minor tweaks to a welfare state on its knees, and for everyone to ‘pay their fair share’?
Tax authorities can’t collect tens of billions owed to them each year by big business, but refuse to return £1000 they owe a low-income worker who’s lost his job? What a joke!
This is why the slogan “tax the rich” rings hollow for many ordinary people. It doesn’t address the overwhelming tax burden already placed on the majority to pay for crumbling services, imperialist wars and free-market bailouts.
Meanwhile, the rich don’t even pay the taxes their own laws currently oblige them to. In fact, according to Tax Justice UK, “one third of global tax dodging is enabled by the UK and British Overseas Territories”. The British ruling class had made an entire industry out of tax-dodging!
The real answer to this robbery isn’t more taxation. It’s the expropriation of the parasites at the top, and getting rid of the burden of taxation for the working class.
Henry Gray, London
An “emerging oligarchy”?
In his farewell address, former-president Joe Biden praised American institutions, and warned of “an emerging oligarchy” in the US, with zero self-awareness!
As if his lucrative career as the Senator of Delaware – America’s own onshore tax haven – didn’t consist of decades of carrying water for banking giants like Bank of America, Capital One, and J.P. Morgan Chase – whose reckless gambling led to mass foreclosures in the 2008 crisis.
Biden was nothing more than a safe pair of hands for capitalist interests. He was a sworn defender of this “oligarchy” he cynically warns us about.
He proceeds to claim that the problem with oligarchy is that it’s just a case of “people not paying their fair share”, rather than oligarch’s concentration of wealth in the first place making democracy impossible.
Biden has been nothing but a willing servant of the rich for his entire life. But only now does he feel the need to warn against them! I suppose you can get quite forgetful in your twilight years…
Jake Deacon, Oxford