Why Millionaires Are Fleeing Britain

Tax increases of £30 billion will hike Britain’s taxation rate to an all-time high of 38.3 percent of gdp in five years, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced today. Benefits will rise with inflation; pensions, faster than inflation. Meanwhile, tax thresholds will remain fixed—so working people will see their spending power shrink, while government dependents will be better off.

Other changes announced:

• A “mansion tax” on homes worth more than £2 million
• Higher tax rates on income from renting out property and returns on savings
• A new pay-per-mile road pricing scheme for electric and hybrid vehicles

Despite raising taxes by £70 billion across the last two budgets, Britain’s debt will also reach an all-time high, exceeding £3 trillion.

The budget has been a months-long farce, with the government leaking details then changing its mind. It caused turmoil in the stock market and ground the housing market to a halt. To cap it off, the Office for Budget Responsibility accidentally published the full budget early, before all the details had been announced in Parliament.

Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That’s Reeves’s problem. The wealthy were already leaving the UK at a record rate: More than 10,000 millionaires left last year; another 16,500 are expected to follow this year. The top 1 percent of earners in Britain pay 30 percent of the nation’s taxes.

In 1964, the Trumpet’s predecessor, the Plain Truth, wrote:

[T]he British public remains apathetic! … The new generation insists only on less work and more benefits. The welfare state, supported by each government in turn, encourages just such an attitude. … But as the cry grows louder for wage increases, unemployment pay, sick benefits, pensions, allowances, national assistance, grants and payments—the entire economy staggers, unable to stay afloat!

We’ve had decades of this approach. It’s unsustainable. The wheels are about to fall off Britain’s economy. The only solution is massive changes to our economy and lifestyle. And that is coming. Herbert W. Armstrong articulated the hope for Britain in his free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.