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1 day ago
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The Fabian Society’s Joe Dromey could not be more wrong in arguing that the Labour leadership should attack the Greens and Reform UK as representing “twin populisms” (Zack Polanski offering voters fantasy solutions, says head of Fabian Society, 31 December). Dromey dismisses the Green party’s support for a wealth tax as a “fantasy” policy. Yet this is a policy that eight in 10 Labour voters support. I have been campaigning for wealth taxes for years, and large numbers of Labour MPs now back such a measure.
Dromey argues that a wealth tax could not fund all the investment we need in our communities. But that is not an argument against it, but to make it part of a wider package of reforms to tackle the deep inequality that scars our society. A wealth tax of 2% on assets over £10m could raise £24bn a year. Equalising capital gains tax rates with income tax and imposing a windfall tax on the super-profits of the banks could take that total closer to £50bn.
This would not only provide vital resources to support people still hit hard by the cost of living crisis and to fund our public services. It would also send a clear signal that a Labour government is prepared to act against our broken economic model.
While a tiny elite get ever richer, the living standards of the vast majority have stagnated since the bankers crashed the economy over 15 years ago. With growth weak and unlikely to improve without structural change, Labour must grasp the nettle of redistribution.
Dromey’s approach is also a political dead end. Labour is losing more voters to the Greens, and to those saying they will not vote, than it is to Reform. Losing those voters risks opening the door to Reform victories. Calling on the Labour leadership to reject popular social democratic policies is not only a moral mistake but an electoral one.
Richard Burgon MP
Labour, Leeds East
Joe Dromey makes several valid observations regarding the twin challenges facing the Labour party from the Green party and Reform. But I think he has to some extent missed the point. Relatively few Green voters believe that solving the intractable problems of the UK economy is as simple as taxing billionaires. Rather, this policy serves as a signpost to the Green priority of addressing wealth inequality, which has climbed to near-Victorian levels – the top fifth now own two-thirds of UK wealth. The Greens have policies to address this issue; Labour does not.
More than that, what attracts younger voters like me to the Greens is Polanski’s positivity. He clearly believes we can be better, that UK voters deserve a better deal. Labour won a landslide majority in 2024 and immediately began doom-mongering about the dire state of the economy. Evidently, it believed it was 2010, when claims about empty coffers were de rigueur.
It is not 2010, it is 2025, and after a decade and a half of relentless austerity and negativity, many voters are looking for a glimmer of hope. If the Fabian Society and the wider Labour party wish to head off the twin threats at their door, they’d do well to stir some up, instead of marching under a banner reading “Better things aren’t possible”.
Adam Osborne
Bristol
There can be no greater proof of Zack Polanski’s successful cut-through than that the Fabian Society now sees the Green party as a threat. Alas for Labour, which has long provided reasons why some of its otherwise natural heartland continue to vote elsewhere.
John Gray
York
