Corbyn announces Your Party

[noblegiraffe]

His new political party with Zarah Sultana.

Except it doesn't appear to even have a name and now Zarah Sultana is having to go around twitter correcting journalists saying it's not called Your Party, while not actually clarifying what it is called.

I'm sure it will be extremely well organised.

China isn't socialist (trots would call it state capitalism) and it certainly isn't democratic but ok

No, one couldn't argue that China is working better than the US when they're authoritarian, have no human rights and are ethnically cleansing their own citizens. The US is at least ethnically cleansing other people's.

Not sure Chinese citizens would agree with you 🙄

Except that on this occasion Starmer has done it for them, by vilifying the left within his own party, throwing most of them out, withdrawing the whip from his own leftwing MPs and making it impossible for the left to have any kind of voice or representation within the party that was originally formed for that purpose.

What do you expect them to do, in a "democracy" where people are supposed to be able to seek representation for their views and aspirations? Crawl under a rock and shut up like they've been told?

Property taxes. Land value Tax.

Sure, they can leave - and take their houses and acres of land with them?

People aren't going to vote for a Garden Tax. That was tried before with Labour.

That surely depends on which seats they decide to run in, and whether there's any cooperation between them and the Greens in deciding that? (which some sources are suggesting there definitely will be).

Really? When was that?

I remember before the election a conspiracy going around that Starmer was going to send drones into people's gardens and then tax them. Perhaps it's that.

Do you not remember?

Label a 'land value tax' a Garden Tax and it is dead in the water.

A bit like Theresa May's 'Dementia Tax'.

https://fullfact.org/economy/labours-land-value-tax-will-you-have-sell-your-garden/

Labour didn't attempt to bring in a garden tax.

Well no, because they weren't elected on that manifesto. But they had a manifesto commitment to review council tax and potentially replace it with a garden tax which was immediately picked up on as something to scare voters with.

I'm sure this 'wealth redistribution' thing sounds lovely until people who are quite comfortably off realise that they are also going to be targeted.

Ooh, definitely not the intent, just found it funny, can only apologise if that’s how it comes over

Therefore it's not something Labour tried.

"We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business rates and consider new options such as a land value tax."

A Land Value Tax is a tax on the potential value of land itself, ignoring anything that's built on it. It isn’t being proposed as an additional tax, but as a potential replacement for council taxes and/or business rates.

People aren't going to vote for a Garden Tax.

Labour had the potential for a Land Value Tax in their manifesto which was immediately dubbed a Garden Tax with stories in the media which would scare off voters.

Therefore, if Corbyn's new party are set on a Land Value Tax, this will not be a general vote-winner.

Or are you going to argue that actually he could become PM with a Garden Tax as a commitment?

He couldn't get into government in 2017 or 2019 with a major party so it's not something I'm particularly worried about tbf.

You're confused.

People aren't going to vote for a Garden Tax. That was tried before with Labour.

Labour didn't try to have a garden tax. They broached the idea of a land value tax to replace council tax. A garden tax has not been put forward by any Labour government.

I never said it was. I was looking more at Scandinavian countries not China. I was just making the point that while China isn't great, is the USA any better right now.

People didn’t vote for the Labour Party whose manifesto contained a commitment to review council tax and potentially replace it with a Land Value Tax which was dubbed a ‘Garden Tax’ in the media. A Garden Tax is obviously not a vote winner.

Do you agree that a Garden Tax is not a vote winner?

This is very tiresome. A garden tax has not been put forward by any Labour government. I'm not interested in debating whether or not a made up pledge would be a vote winner.

Someone was putting it forward as a potential new pledge by the new Corbyn party which makes sense as it was floated as a possibility in his Labour manifesto.

That poster seemed to think it was a good idea.

A garden tax will perhaps be seen by people without a garden as a good thing.
Perhaps whilst taking more money off rich people then they'll also start taking gardens off people.

Has that ever worked out well in history?

This is the problem with our right wing media, sensible ideas and proposals, such as May tried to do with Adult Social Care, get trashed, they called it a "Death Tax" it became politically toxic and was dropped, so we are left with a failed care system, costing many people everything they have, whilst others pay nothing at all.

We then got Hunt cutting NI, making reform of the care system now an impossibility... no money to do so.

Council Tax reform is urgently needed, multi million pound properties pay perhaps 2 or 3x what a Band D property pays.

But as you say, it would be called a "Garden Tax" and cries of "Exodus of rich leaving the UK"

Exactly.

@Alexandra2001
I'm never in favour of government looking at things because they generally make them worse.
If council tax is unfair because expensive houses get to pay pennies more than a smaller house, then one of the options previously tried was Poll tax.
This meant students had to pay something too - which meant they all joined in the protest marches.

Of course local council spending needs to be sane and rational and several councils are going bust because they can not make ends meet. The demands on them are huge with adult and child social care being hugely expensive.
Opportunities to resolve that are always unpopular as someone with money will have to pay when someone without gets it all free, thus reducing incentives to actually work hard and success in life.
We already punish people on benefits for thrift by reducing their money if they save - but if they add extra to their pension we wouldn't. Although we'll probably punish the pension pots with tax and reduction of the state pension any day now.

There is not enough money to make a wonderful world for everyone.
Some services are essential for a well run society - health care is a wonderful thing, but currently the NHS isn't making people better fast enough.

I don't have any real answers, but think that any new party likely to take union support from Labour is going to be really really interesting in today's political landscape.

JC has been to the Birmingham bin men picket lines today. Unison have fell out with Angela. It could all come spinning JC's way if he plays it right. However that might not make his party (your party) electable.

Corbyn has been to Birmingham this morning, Rayner will be spitting feathers 🤣