Why would mumsnet leftists vote Green over reform?

[Wizeman]

Now I have your attention

What are the substantive political reasons for voting for the Green Party over Reform UK?

Please avoid responses based on personality or tone (e.g., claims that one leader is “nicer” than the other). Instead, I am interested in clear policy-based arguments and ideological reasoning.
Reform UK is led by Nigel Farage, a businessman with a long-standing role in national politics. The Green Party is currently led by Zak Polanski, whose professional background includes work in theatre and as a hypnotist.

With that in mind, I would welcome serious explanations focused on policy positions, governance approach, economic strategy, and long-term outcomes, rather than personal character assessments.

I voted green but would vote labour if I were in a seat that could be won by reform

This. Russia and Belarus left the ECHR. I’m not convinced they are shining examples of human rights and democracy.

I think it’s splitting hairs. Dividend taxes are a form of wealth tax as they are applied to income earned from investments not income earned from labour. This is the exact disparity that the Greens do not like.

Moreover, people say millionaires won’t leave if they are taxed more. In this case they did.

The ECHR needs reform. It is no longer far right to say that, even Labour politicians have said it. Leaving it is probably a step too far but Reform have moved the conversation on.

Of course a 20% hike in taxes will alter behaviours but no is suggesting this for the UK.
Perhaps a 1% increase will make people leave....if so, one has to question how tax they were paying in the first place?
It also has to be acknowledged that many people who do leave, wont be selling up their businesses or assets, which will still be taxed.

I just wish the "Wealthy leave UK" had been adopted by the remain campaign, as Brexit was a huge trigger and clearly now, so many are bothered by it....

I listen to Business Today most mornings, business after business state they need friction free access to the EU... if we had that, we'd get more in taxes.... they clearly cannot rely on the USA.

Taxes have to rise, if not on the wealthy, who? the poor?

Those on lower incomes already pay a lower share of tax than people in Europe. And for the super wealthy I certainly don’t disagree with reviewing the tax system- I just don’t think a wealth tax in the way the greens describe it will work and they are not being challenged to explain it. Like Reform, a lot of what they say are soundbites. Haven’t read their manifesto so maybe they explain it more fully in there.

I would like to see proper reform of the tax code to incentivise business creation, work and growth. That’s the way to build a society that can pay for itself, not just heaping more and more tax on people.

Heck! The world can still surprise us all !

I pretty much agree with all of that...

I read on article on why no one reforms the tax system,, it takes too long, by the time a Govt does it, its time for a GE and the next administration gets the credit but i'm sure that smaller changes could be done, such as you suggest.

Unfortunately, they'll never be cross party agreement on this.

Why are you rating people's answers as "good" or "pretty good" and patting them on the back for "backing up their answer"? Are you in school and this is how your teacher marks your work?

Leftist/liberal MNers typically care about public services, safety net, environment, equality. Reform policies will actively worsen most of these, either deliberately or through incompetence. Green policies are untested but not actively working against those principles.

That's a good point. Many businesses/millionaires threatened to leave the UK if Brexit went ahead.

Do we know these millionaires who are leaving are going because of tax rises and not because living in the EU benefits them?

There have always been a number of wealthy people willing to overlook the horrendous human rights in the Middle East to save tax, but it seems a number of wealthy individuals are now moving to EU states, including countries that have higher taxes than the UK, such as Italy.

In 2025, the UK saw a projected net outflow of approximately 16,500millionaires, the largest such departure for any country, driven by new tax regulations like the abolition of non-dom status and inheritance tax changes, with many moving to the UAE, USA, and other nations offering lower taxes and better economic conditions.

Of course there will be many who say who cares but these are the people that contribute the most in tax.

Really? the definition of a millionaire, includes property, many people are in quite ordinary jobs but because of pensions and property will be classed as "millionaires"

You don't know why people leave the UK..... Friends of mine - defo Millionaires based on their property value and final salary pensions, went to NZ to be with their DD, oh and just 20% tax payers too.

No Western country can compete with the UAE with zero tax rates and if relations continue to go down hill with the USA, these tax exiles will coming running back, possibly forced too, with little to their name and claiming benefits - who knows what Trump may do?

We've had more wealthy people in the UK than any other country in Europe, what good has it done us?

Have we world class Public services? Transport? - Rail and Roads? Health services?

Octopus/Kraken plan on staying in the UK, these are the businesses we need here, not some early retiree with a house in Surrey.

Most, if not all, of the reports regarding millionaires leaving seem to come from wealth management companies, which have a very good reason to want taxes to stay low. I don't know if I trust their findings, especially given that the millionaires themselves have said the majority support wealth taxes and tax is not a main driver for relocation.

https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/uk-millionaire-poll-2025

You are correct that I don't know the reasons why millionaires choose to leave the UK. However if they were for say family reasons or weather or whatever personal circumstances then I would expect the figures to remain broadly the same for each year. However the numbers leaving in 2024 were 11,500 (again a record at the time but saw roughly a 50% increase in 2025.

A big driver for this imo is taxation.

Where do the figures come from, is there an official source for them other than the stats pushed out by wealth management firms?

The only figures I’ve seen are from Henley Wealth Management which specialises in helping the very wealthy purchase passports. You can draw your own conclusions.

There is no official source for these figures and yes they tend to be published by wealth funds.

The point though is whilst when i was a child, a Millionaire really was a wealthy person, nowadays, they are 2-a-penny.

My sister, a retired teacher is one, never paid 40% tax in her life.

Taxation will play a part, but from i can see, the big driver is the UAE is going all out to attract the wealthy and we cannot compete with those tax rates.

How long will they stay there? its ok when you re young but the country suffers from very high temperatures, 40'C would be a cool day in Summer.. not great to be stuck indoors as you get older.

For me, its not the wealthy leaving but teachers, healthcare professionals etc going to countries that offer far more than the UAE long term, they aren't going for tax reasons or even more money but for a better life....

That report by Henley is either very suspicious, or I'm missing something.

Firstly, the millions they are counting are in USD, so not UK millionaires. They're counting migrating as people who have left the country after being here for 6 months or more, so they're counting people who were only ever here temporarily, for work or other reasons, and the source they quote for their numbers is New World Wealth, but when you go to New World Wealth, they quote Henley as their source.

I did eventually find their source, but it took some digging. They track people's work location on LinkedIn 😂

I'm fairly satisfied that there is no "mass exodus of wealth" happening in the UK.

I agree that Henley certainly have an angle in pushing the view that large numbers of millionaires are leaving the UK.
Plus how do they know from LinkedIn whether someone is a millionaire or not?

But in the absence of any official evidence or information that's all we have to go on.

For what it's worth I do actually know of 2 wealthy families that have moved to Dubai for tax reasons. So imo there are wealthy people leaving the UK for tax reasons but without any official data it's impossible to say how many. And equally the UK Government has an angle in deliberately not publishing this information.

They track high-worth individuals on LinkedIn; what they can't know from someone's work location on LinkedIn is where they are living. My LinkedIn profile indicates that I have worked in Wales and Texas over the last 5 years. I've lived in the same British town for the last 22 years. What I have done is remote work for companies whose head offices are based in Wales and Texas.

In the absence of official sources, we can't just go making things up to suit our agenda.

The government do have official sources; they have tax receipts. If taxing wealth and raising taxes for high earners led to a loss of revenue, they wouldn't keep doing it.

Well, if there is no reliable information and tax receipts are at record highs, then at best we don't know.

This is a story pushed by the rightwing media and other vested interests to rubbish Labour or boost their own company profiles.

Although overall tax receipts are higher than last year this is largely due to a growth in low and middle income earners due to increased employment.

The figures for income from self assessment tax payers (often the higher earners) is down as is the tax income from small business and also CGT.

Now whether this is due to small businesses being less profitable (which would seem odd with higher employment) or simply less small businesses is not possible to say.

Equally whether the fall in self assessment tax receipts is due to those people earning less or just less of them as they leave the country is again impossible to say.

But imo and based on what I have personally seen there are numbers of people leaving the UK for tax reasons and going to Dubai and the US.

Exactly how many are leaving is impossible to say without Government statistics and there is absolutely no way Labour will ever publish this information because it will be seized on by the Opposition as evidence of Labour's failing tax policy.

https://obr.uk/box/the-in-year-shortfall-in-2024-25-receipts-and-its-impact-on-the-forecast/

How is Labours Tax policy failing when tax receipts are at record highs?

I assume increasing tax revenue is the aim of a tax policy?

The two main drivers for higher revenues is the increase in Corporation Tax increases, from 19% to 25% and freezing of tax thresholds....

... i'm struggling to recall who did both of these....

If we are going to use anecdotal evidence for our argument, then the several trades people i know, are seeing their businesses booming.

Low taxes in the USA? mmmmm factor in Health Insurances and its not a particularly low income tax regime, add in Federal and state taxes and CT is above that of the UK.
We can never compete with UAE... and 0% rates.

If the higher tax receipts are not a result of a thriving business making more profit and therefore being taxed more, but instead a result of just hiking taxes on an ever dwindling pot, than no, it’s not a great policy.

UK companies, across many sectors are making very good net returns, non financial, around 10% average.

Construction is the main poor performer.

Just look at the FTSE All Share, mostly UK businesses, a 44% increase over the last 5 years, with 18% increase in the last year alone.