Would Labour voters be upset if joining the EU meant they could no longer tax children’s education?

[Blarneyspoco]

Taxing children’s education is banned as part of EU membership. If the U.K. rejoined the EU, would Labour supporters be upset that they can no longer levy the tax or would it be seen as a necessary compromise.

It hasn’t helped anyone. I can see why people are annoyed at being used by Labour for a dud policy.

Too late to add - there were plenty of ways to raise extra taxes, they could've raised 62% rate to 63%, reduce threshold for top earners, reduce max pension contribution, etc. These would hit high earners so the crowds would be very happy to see adult blood.
But no, let's make it better, let's go after children.

There was an interesting thread here last night
Page 2 | Would you kill 10000 people to save the person you love most? | Mumsnet
60% said they'd do it to save own kids. Don't be surprised that social contract is completely broken for many of us.

It is fine @nearlylovemyusername - you are allowed to despise Labour over this and you too @strawberrybubblegum I have a good friend who is a train driver who couldn’t go to grammar school back in the day due to Labour, he still absolutely hates them for it and is soon to turn 50. These things happen. When they make it personal then that is the result they have to bargain for. And like I said, it is how nastily it was implemented that made all the difference and how there were no exemptions for SEND at all or small cheaper schools either. The whole thing is ludicrous and indefensible other than for maybe the very handful of very rich schools and the really privileged in them, who probably give two monkeys either way.

This is how I feel, the social contract has been ripped up. The outrageous entitlement to other people’s money by these people is insane. On top of all the other taxes and proposed taxes to be thrown at net contributors, I think the education vat is by far the most divisive. To have your dc’s education taxed until you can’t afford it anymore or the school closes then be taunted for that and told you couldn’t afford it anyway if you couldn’t afford a 20% tax! It’s so low, it’s like they’re not treated as real people or their DC don’t matter other than as a cash cow.
I sometimes wonder if these entitled people have given any thought to a few years in the future when nobody is the slightest bit interested in funding them anymore. I’m certainly not.

The Telegraph backing rejoin to stick it to the government on PS VAT.

Here's the thing. You worked hard. So did they. You're entitled.

It's you that doesn't get it. Your idea of worth is money and money alone.

Your story is just the same almost everyone I know in London.

We did all the same things as you. The commute, the incredibly stressful and hard 60 hour per week professional jobs.

I also saw the many people who paid proportionately more tax than you. Less in £ and pence maybe, but as a %, more. I saw the incredible carers on minimum wage, I see the binmen, I see the people whose jobs were harder than mine. Harder jobs for less money, accessing food banks to feed their families. And I was grateful for my job and its earnings. Not entitled to more than them. Grateful for the remuneration it brought.

It hasn't made me feel so disconnected from my fellow human, so self-righteous of my entitlement to what I want when I want it. I feel sorry for your attitude, not your tax bill.

Surely you feel disconnected from your fellow humans who don’t like the idea of moving their kids schools, selling their house, losing their job or closing their business to hand you ever increasing chunks of their money. You wouldn’t feel so entitled to your fellow humans money if you weren’t disconnected from them.

So much hyperbole around this. VAT on school fees has happened, the world is still turning, it’s far from the worst thing going on in the world. Time to move on.

I wasn't a big advocate of the policy in the first place, I just found the excessive reaction very entitled.

👏👏👏

You make it sound like it’s irreversible. I don’t think ‘as long as it’s not the worst thing in the world’ is a good enough reason to not point out a malicious and harmful policy when you see it. Especially when it’s aimed at children.

I sympathise OP, but it’s not something most people care about as they can’t/don’t use private schooling.

Hope your kids haven’t been too unsettled by the change! I know it’s caused a lot of parents stress and impacted many kids’ education, so can absolutely understand why it’s an issue you’re focussed on.

We now pay £12k VAT on school fees every year. The money just comes from what we would have spent on charitable donations, so it’s repurposed spending and hasn’t had a financial impact per se.

What bothers me more is that my youngest’s prep school closed down as a result of the VAT and we had to find a new one and lost lots of school friends! Most people at the school weren’t wealthy and half have now gone to state schools. The fantastic teachers have all stayed in private sector (plus some early retirements). I feel sorry for the ancillary staff like groundskeepers and catering as they haven’t found jobs as easily.

God knows where the VAT is actually going. It’s not about making money though 🤷🏼‍♀️

You find the reaction excessive, because they’re not real children to you. They’re 19th century 6 year old caricatures running around wearing boaters and monocles whipping servants.

The reason there was so much furore on MN about VAT on private education is because the policy is batshit crazy! It is not a done thing in other countries! It is completely out of the ordinary, very much like Brexit. No other country left the EU either. It just seemed like another crazy thing Britain was doing. And it is traumatic if your own country keeps pulling crazy shit. It really undermines investor and global confidence in government. It is Banana Republic territory. That is why some of us with kids in state school were also worried about it. It sends the completely wrong signal to the world as to what the UK is about. I would like to think of us as an open country that betters itself continuously for all and is creative and welcoming and diverse. I am pretty sure that once upon a time in the late 90s we were like that. Not a spiteful little island grabbing each other’s toys and crying.

Yet again massive hyperbole. No, I don't.

None of it. I didn't dream up the policy. I didn't implement the policy. I didn't even vote for the policy to be honest. I didn't particularly agree or disagree with it.

I just find this extended victimisation drama to be really excessive.

But I get it as well. It's a cry from a wounded parent, and in that sense, you have my sympathy. You're in pain. I see you. I just don't agree with you on this particular topic.

I don’t see why it was worth it to cause stress to anyone in this way given nothing has improved for state. What a spiteful thing to do politically.

I guess it’s part of why all three who did dream it up have gone.

It doesn’t affect me either, I just don’t support pathetic class spite malice especially involving children. I don’t think we needed more division, over something so small as if a parent pays to send their child to a particular school? WTAF. The reason you don’t empathise with these children is because you see them as other.

It may be reversed in the future or it may not but right now it is in place. There are much more malicious things happening and I object to being told what I have to care about. I’ll choose what really upsets me, thank you.

I also saw the many people who paid proportionately more tax than you. Less in £ and pence maybe, but as a %, more

You really should actually think about the ideas you hear before believing them. And ideally put some numbers to them, to test them out. Rather than believe any old emotive shit, because it resonates.

I assume you've extrapolated from the whiny nonsense people spout about VAT being regressive, and you've got all high-horse about the rich not paying their 'fair share'... without the slightest fucking clue about how much we're giving you.

Do please explain to me how someone earning £24k and paying £3,200 income tax (13.4%) can possibly be considered to be paying more tax than someone earning £124k and paying £46,322 income (37.2%).

Even proportionately.

Even if the lower earner paid VAT on every penny (no accomodation, no food, no children clothes - nothing VAT free) they would only be paying 33.4%. Whereas the higher earner is already paying 37.2% just in income tax, even if they didn't buy a single thing that incurred VAT.

But neither of those things is realistic. In fact the higher earner will almost certainly use more of their income on things which aren't VAT exempt - by design, because VAT isn't charged on necessities.

And that's without considering any of the other progressive taxes like council tax (£thousands a year difference), stamp duty (£10s of thousands)

Your confident statement is very obviously complete nonsense, when you just think about it for a moment.

So have a bit of fucking appreciation for how much people are paying in.

And whilst you're at it, think about what actually makes the UK the fabled 'rich country' that gives all it's citizens so much already... but you use to justify extra theft from people you don't like.

And then think about whether you want it to remain a 'rich country' - with free healthcare, free education, social care, an incredibly generous welfare state, and outflows of foreign aid and asylum support - for another generation... which frankly is looking pretty damn unlikely right now.

And then maybe - just maybe- think about what you need to do yourself to contribute to that.

Here's a starting point:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/c21bd8d7-e7b1-42d8-b82d-efe61e589721?shareToken=84961487a3e596365afbdb4faefdb686

@strawberrybubblegum

Why don't you have some fucking appreciation for the hard work of the lower earners, that enable you to be a higher earner. There's no chance at all you would be able to earn what you do without the hard work of others in society around you.

And. They're. Paid.

We're all paid to compensate us for what we do for others.

Redistributive taxation is on top of that.

For solidarity. Which has worn pretty fucking thin.

You.Are.Paid.Too

You want lower paid people to appreciate you, you should appreciate them too. Goes both ways

Yes - we're both paid. For doing our jobs, and reflecting how our work contributes. So equal appreciation is due in both direction for that.

And then on top of that equal appreciation in both directions for work done and paid for, higher earners hand over way, way more tax - both in nominal terms and proportionately - as a gift to lower earners.

It's that gift for which some fucking appreciation is due.

Not insults. Not trying to harm our children for purely vindictive reasons.

Because if you declare that my DC is not 'our children', as Bridget Phillipson did, and you deliberately make their lives worse, you can be fucking sure that I will feel zero solidarity with you, and zero obligation to you.

Really sorry but you’re not going to find people grovelling with gratitude for you paying your taxes. Especially with such an aggressive and entitled attitude.

No one is asking for grovelling. Just a stop to the insults, recognising that actually we're contributing a lot, and stop deliberately and vindictively harming our families.

If the UK can't manage that, then frankly it's fucked within a generation.

You should read that Times article I linked.