Labour Doesn’t Need a Moral Case for Taxing the Rich. It Needs a Reality Check.

Another day, another Guardian column calling for Labour to be braver, louder, more moral. This time, it’s Andy Beckett arguing that the party should stop being so shy and finally admit that taxing the rich is the solution to all our woes. The rich, he tells us, have too much. The poor, too little. Labour, he insists, is missing a moment—one in which voters are supposedly crying out for fairness, and for the wealth of the few to be used to lift up the many.

On paper, it sounds almost noble. But scratch the surface and it collapses under its own assumptions. Because the truth is, most people don’t want what Beckett thinks they want. Not really. Not when it comes with a bill attached.

Yes, inequality has grown in recent decades. But so has national wealth. Compared to the 1970s, we’re richer across the board. Homes are warmer, education is better, more children leave school able to read and write, and the average standard of living is miles ahead. It was a more equal time, sure—but we were all poorer. Romanticising that era ignores just how far we’ve come. And it twists the facts to pretend today’s working families are worse off than they were in a Britain still rationing opportunity and indoor heating.

That’s not to say everything’s fine. Far from it. But redistributing wealth isn’t the magic fix it’s made out to be—and pretending that voters are secretly hungry for it is even more misguided. People like the idea of fairness. They say they want the rich to pay more. But press them on specifics—raise inheritance tax, start taxing property or pensions differently—and the support melts away.

Labour knows this. It’s why they’re keeping their cards close. Beckett calls that cowardice. I’d call it sanity. Look at the record: the only Labour government to win repeatedly in modern times was Tony Blair’s. And he didn’t win by calling for wealth taxes. He won by promising opportunity, aspiration and reform. He won by understanding that the route to a fairer Britain wasn’t to soak the rich—it was to grow the economy so more people could share in its success.

Beckett suggests Labour should make the “moral case” for redistribution. But here’s the problem: moral case or not, it doesn’t work. Not economically, not politically. The wealth he wants to tax is mobile. The people who hold it can—and do—move. It happened in France when they tried a similar thing under Hollande. It’s happening in Britain too, as non-doms quietly pack their bags for places more welcoming.

We’re in a global economy. You can’t tax ambition into submission and expect growth to flourish. There’s only so far you can push before your tax base starts shrinking. And then what? Raise taxes again, on everyone else? Or start printing money and pretending inflation won’t come knocking?

The real problem isn’t that we haven’t taxed the rich enough. It’s that we’ve spent the last decade tying our economy up in knots. Endless DEI audits. Green regulations that add cost but no value. A benefits system that punishes work and rewards dependency. Small businesses and start-ups—those meant to drive growth—get hit with red tape, while bureaucracies expand.

We don’t need more moralising. We need unleashing. We need to reward those who create, not penalise them. We need to stop pretending that dragging down the top will magically lift everyone else. It doesn’t. What lifts people is jobs, productivity, growth. That’s where the focus should be.

So no, Labour doesn’t need to “make the case” for taxing the rich. It needs to make the case for getting Britain working, building, and growing again. That might not land a Guardian op-ed. But it might just win an election—and change some lives in the process.