JEREMY Corbyn unleashed 12 tax rises on workers and businesses yesterday to pay for his Socialist vision for Britain.
The Labour leader’s array of levies has been drawn up to raise £82.9billion to fund a bumper spending spree.
1
Unveiling his party’s manifesto yesterday, he also pledged to blow £1trillion over five years on nationalisations and a range of freebies.
His tax assault includes a second homes tax, reversing inheritance tax cuts, a transaction tax on bankers, VAT on private schools and a windfall tax on oil companies.
But the scale of proposed spending horrified business leaders and independent analysts, who doubted he could make the figures add up.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “These are vast numbers, enormous, colossal, in the context of anything we’ve seen ever, really.”
Mr Corbyn called his blueprint for Britain “the most radical and ambitious in decades”.
He is offering free university tuition, free social care, free childcare for all two to four-year-olds, a public sector pay rise of five per cent, a four-day week and freezing the state pension age at 66.
RADICAL AGENDA
Buses will be nationalised, he announced, alongside water, energy, rail, postal services and broadband.
And he pitched himself as the people’s champion, saying: “The billionaires own the Conservative party but they don’t own us.”
But it emerged that four of his new taxes would hit not just the rich but lower-earners as well.
The IFS warned that raising taxes did not necessarily mean getting more money paid in and might spark an exodus of the wealthy.
It said he would create “just about the most punitive corporate tax system in the world”.
The TUC welcomed his manifesto but CBI director-general Carolyn Fairbairn said: “Labour’s default instinct for state control will drag our economy down.”
Boris Johnson said until Brexit was done, “none of this carries any economic credibility whatever”.
Jewish student protester Eliana Ozin, 20, said: “No person should be standing to lead our country who tolerates racism and anti-Semitism, like Jeremy Corbyn does.”
NHS bad claim ‘unrealistic’
By Kate Ferguson
INDEPENDENT experts yesterday ripped apart Jeremy Corbyn’s claim a US trade deal could cost the NHS £500million a week.
The Labour boss accused Boris Johnson of secretly plotting to sell off the NHS to Donald Trump after Brexit as he launched his manifesto in Birmingham.
But the independent charity Full Fact said the numbers are overblown.
The charity stated: “This figure is extreme and unrealistic. It has not been the case in countries which have agreed deals with the USA, such as Australia.
“This claim is based on a scenario where UK drug prices more than double to match those in the USA. It represents a fairly extreme scenario although it illustrates a genuine concern.”
Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact, criticised Labour for being misleading.
He said: “We all deserve information that is accurate and honest.”
