The Green Party has today attacked Labour’s pretence of “targeting Big Business”
While the Green Party supports a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) which could raise as much as €35bn (£29.3bn) a year for the 11 EU countries who have taken it up, Labour’s Chuka Umunna, the Shadow Business Secretary, has argued that he does not want to see Britain’s financial services shrink, instead arguing a strong City is needed to finance growth in other parts of the economy. Such an alliance with the City firmly establishes Labour’s commitment to an unbalanced and divisive economic policy favouring large corporations and the City over small business owners.
The FTT, a small tax placed on every financial securities transaction, is designed to prevent a repeat of the conditions that stoked the credit crunch by reining in investment banks and limiting the speculative trading that contributed to the financial meltdown in 2008 as well as creating revenue. Revenue, that the Green Party believes could be spent on tackling climate change, food and fuel poverty, and investment in infrastructure.
Green Party Deputy Leader, Will Duckworth commented:
“The Financial Transaction Tax would be a simple tax on the people who gamble on exchange rates and contribute nothing to the national well being using money to make money instead of serious long term investment in the manufacturing industries which will put people back to work for the common good.
“The only reason I can see for anyone to object to this tax on the rich is that they are listening to big corporations and their lobbyists rather than the majority of tax-paying citizens of this Country.”