Burnham shields 22,000 richest, workers pay defence bill
Andy Burnham has parked a wealth tax before naming his cabinet, leaving a £4.7bn defence bill and strained public services to everyone else.
Andy Burnham has ruled out a wealth tax before naming a single minister, leaving working people to fund a £4.7bn defence bill and strained public services on their own.
Days before he enters No 10, the Burnham wealth tax retreat was confirmed to podcaster Gary Lineker on 15 July: no move against the 22,000 richest families “for now”, he said, because he didn’t want to “create new divisions and pitch people one against another.” The same day, allies briefed that Shabana Mahmood, from Labour’s right, is his frontrunner for chancellor.
Burnham wealth tax leaves working people to foot the bill The public disagrees with him, decisively. TUC polling puts support for a 2% annual wealth tax on assets over £10m at 68%, against 22% opposed. Even 61% of Reform-leaning voters back a 1% levy on the same £10m-plus families, according to Best for Britain and YouGov, rising to 71% across the wider public.
That is the “division” Burnham says he wants to avoid: one the electorate is already asking for. Meanwhile the bills are real. Burnham has committed an extra £4.7bn to the defence investment plan, on top of the cost of taking Thames Water and other utilities into public control, all while sticking to a 2024 manifesto that already rules out raising national insurance, income tax or VAT. Someone pays for that. Under this plan, it isn’t the 22,000.
Mahmood, not Miliband
Burnham’s team had considered Ed Miliband for chancellor before concluding, as Bloomberg and LBC reported, that he would not “pass the sniff test” with senior City figures. Mahmood, whose economic views are largely untested in public office, is now the frontrunner. Burnham ally Louise Haigh has called instead for “a proper wealth tax that rewards work, closes loopholes and finally gives us the means to invest in the NHS, schools and our communities.” Tax campaigner Richard Murphy called the retreat “deeply, depressingly neoliberal.”
To be fair to Burnham, a new prime minister avoiding a fiscal fight in his first week is not unusual, and the manifesto tax lock was itself a mandate voters gave Labour in 2024. But that lock protects the wealth of a few thousand families while the services working people rely on go unfunded, and Burnham has not abolished a wealth tax, only parked it “for another day.” Reform UK’s claim that Burnham would raise £38bn in unmanifestoed levies is a party attack line, not a fact, and should be read as one.
The sniff test he passed this week was the City’s. The public he’s meant to answer to never got to sit it.
