‘Tax the Rich’ to provide jobs for our young people, to end the worst crisis the NHS has ever faced, and to build the council houses we have been promised for the past 25 years

By Colin Fox

With the NHS facing the worst crisis in its history, Scotland trapped in a cost-of-living crisis and a chronic shortage of affordable housing, there is much John Swinney could have addressed in his ‘2026 Programme for Government’ this week. Yet as I watched his speech I felt here was a man simply going through the motions, again.

He began by promising to ‘eradicate child poverty in Scotland’ the seventh successive First Minister to do so. All have failed. ‘I will address the cost-of-living crisis’ he insisted, again something he has pledged for the past three years and failed!

He did however acknowledge that ‘people are disillusioned by the failure of politicians [like him] to address economic inequality’ but offered little to narrow the widening gap. 

Scotland is one of the most ill-divided nations on earth. The international inequality index known as the Gini co-efficient puts Britain [and therefore Scotland] in the top ten most ill-divided nations on earth alongside the likes of the USA and Singapore.

Nothing better illustrates the chasm between the promises of politicians like Swinney, Andy Burnham and Donald Trump at election time to narrow inequality and their abject failure on the matter in office.

That’s why the Scottish Socialist Party’s flagship campaign for 2026 has been to highlight the need for substantial redistribution of wealth and public ownership.

As a teenager my political instincts were activated by the theatre company 7:84 who took their name from the 1970’s statistic that seven percent of the population of Scotland owned 84% of the wealth. The gap today is worse as the rich have gotten richer and the poor poorer over the past 50 years.

Those of us who campaign for redistribution have noticed a regrettable resignation in the attitude of many people in recent times. Here are some of the most common responses we got, for example, from those opposed to our call for the rich to pay more tax at stalls on Princes Street over the past month.

‘You can’t tax the rich. They will leave the country and take their money with them’.

Our response has been to say ‘That’s blackmail. They have a responsibility to society and are obliged to fulfil them just as we all do. It is only right those with the broadest shoulders should carry more of the weight.’

‘The rich pay most of the taxes as it is.’

Not so. The latest government’s figures show the tax take from ordinary people has never been higher when personal allowances, direct and indirect levies are added together – at around 35% of their income. 

Labour and the Tories have frozen the personal tax allowance for example until 2030 and as a result £55bn more will be taken from working people, not from billionaires!

Furthermore, Corporation tax in 1979 when Thatcher was Prime Minister was 52%, today it’s 19%! And most millionaires are registered as limited companies to limit their tax liabilities.

Or take the Council tax that can see some pensioners and the low paid cough up one third of their income whilst the wealthy pay next to nothing. Under our proposal to replace it 60% of people will pay less and the higher paid will contribute more.

‘Surely it’s only right the rich are rewarded after all they work hard for their money?’

Socialists like us are all for rewarding people’s hard work. But who works harder than our nurses, carers, cleaners, bin-men, classroom assistants, factory workers, waiters, hospitality and bar staff and firefighters? Where is their reward? The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, and that’s the wrong way round.

‘What is rich anyway?‘

Millionaires and billionaires are ‘rich’ for sure. And it’s them we want to see contribute more. Billionaires are becoming trillionaires because they don’t pay any taxes. People with £1/2m houses in Edinburgh, or an ISA, or money set aside for their kids and grandkids need not worry.

‘You should go after their assets because the rich can evade taxes on their incomes’

The French economist Thomas Picketty argues precisely that. And many governments are following his advice. In California for example, a Referendum [Proposition 40] in November will ask voters whether the state should take a 5% equity stake in the big tech companies there to provide more money for public health and education, rather than merely a token tax on their profits.

We too feel public ownership of company assets is likely to be more effective in redistributing wealth. 

The Norwegian government owns the oil and gas that comes out of their sector of the North Sea for example and last year it brought them in £55bn. In the UK, by contrast, the tax on the profits of the oil companies who own the oil and gas fields here amounted to just £3.2bn!

Instead of watching billionaires becoming trillionaires we need that money to provide jobs for our young people, social care for our seniors and council houses for our people to live in today.