Former director of communications for Jeremy Corbyn James Schneider took former communications chief for Reform Gawain Towler to task over inequality on GB News.
James Schneider: “special pleading” for the super rich
Gawain Towler was arguing against a wealth tax on the super rich with the classic myth that they will leave:
If you punish people for success… you do that, people will leave and people will not come and invest in this country
In response, James Schneider branded the angle “special pleading”:
What you are saying is completely ludicrous and is special pleading… look who’s been doing well in the last 15 years. It’s not people who use the NHS it’s not people who… work in the NHS. But the wealth of billionaires has tripled in that time.
Towler retorted with the same line:
You launch into the rich in that way, they leave, then there’s no money.
But Schneider said:
Wealthy people in this country are wealthy because they own a lot of assets that are in this country. A person can leave the country – the assets are here. So the idea that assets can just be spirited out of the country and there’s nothing we can do about them, is nonsense.
It’s impossible to argue against a wealth tax.
Even 68% of millionaires support an annual wealth tax of 1-2% on people with more than £10 million in assets.
Those who oppose should suggest an alternative, but they won’t. pic.twitter.com/FbL63cWyml
— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) April 17, 2025
The myth of an ‘exodus’
The idea that the super rich will leave if they’re taxed more has been parroted across the corporate media for a long time. For instance, a flurry of media reports from January claimed that there has been an “exodus” of the super rich since Labour came to power.
Apparently, 10,800 millionaires have left. But that represents just 0.36% of the more than three million millionaires the UK harboured in 2023. The UK already has a proportionately very high number of millionaires.
Tax Justice Network, meanwhile, has documented that just 0.01% of super rich households relocated after Norway, Sweden, and Denmark introduced increased wealth tax reforms.
The organisation points out that there are many factors that prevent them from leaving:
Research suggests that the majority of wealth holders have strong ties to their countries and a genuine desire to contribute as citizens. Factors such as family and social connections, access to education, and overall economic stability carry more weight than tax levels when it comes to their decision on whether to relocate
Indeed, even 68% of millionaires themselves support a wealth tax, according to polling by Survation.
Besides, economist Gary Stevenson has argued that the super rich who own valuable assets in the UK such as commercial property are the “least mobile” people in the world when it comes to tax. He distinguishes them from people who are paid to work for a living, because they could take a job abroad, whereas assets are based here.
Stevenson further said
Who owns your country? Who owns the wealth in your country? Look around you… Look at all of the land. Look at all of the buildings. Look at all of the property. Look at all the productive buildings and machinery and all of the natural resources. Somebody owns that. Who do you want to own it?
The former city trader notes that we are “losing” the middle class because of spiralling inequality.
The Labour government could bring in a wealth tax of 1-2% on assets worth over £10m. This would rebalance society by £22bn per year.
James Schneider knows this – and so does Gawain Towler. But only one of them is willing to acknowledge it.
Featured image via the Canary
