Labour says no to austerity, vows aggressive tax crackdown
Britain's opposition Labour Party on Monday voiced strong anti-austerity sentiments and said it would enforce an aggressive policy of collecting taxes from the wealthy if it won the next election.
The Party's top economic spokesman John McDonnell emphasized that major businesses will be forced to pay their "fair share" of taxes to help end austerity policies.
McDonnell said Labour was now "the only anti-austerity party in Britain,” adding that austerity is not “an economic necessity” and that it is rather “a political choice".
He accused the Conservative-led government of making a "conscious decision" six years ago to protect the very wealthy at the expensive of ordinary people.
"We need to prove to the British people we can run the economy better than the rich elite that runs it now," McDonnell told his party's four-day annual conference in the southern city of Brighton as he outlined the party's economic plans.
"Labour's plan to balance the books will be aggressive. We will force people like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google and all the others to pay their fair share of taxes," he said to loud applause, as Reuters reported.
McDonnell, who is the Labour Party's "shadow chancellor" and a top adviser to opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, also said the Labour is considering a radical review of the role of the Bank of England (BoE).
He said the review will be meant to make the BoE an independent body with an extended mission other than merely focusing on “more than just hitting inflation targets”.
"We will launch a debate on expanding that mandate to include new objectives including growth, employment and earnings," he said.
In an allusion to Corbyn's call for a "people's quantitative easing", McDonnell said that "active monetary policy" would be used to stimulate demand although he stopped short of advocating the printing of money, AFP reported.
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