Super-rich flee to Monaco to evade Corbyn - take the wealth off the 1%!

Britain's super-rich are threatening to up sticks to avoid higher taxes (Click to enlarge)

Connor Rosoman, Brighton Socialist Party

Britain's super-rich are running scared at the very prospect of a Corbyn government. The country's very wealthiest are already moving their trusts and setting up offshore accounts in tax havens like Monaco and Luxembourg.

Some are even making plans to flee the country, according to a report in their mouthpiece, the Financial Times, on 5 October.

The super-rich are terrified of the thought that a Corbyn-led government will embolden workers to come for their profits.

The Tories have faithfully served the capitalist class by cutting taxes for the rich and selling off public assets.

For millions of working people though, this has meant cuts to services and poverty pay, alongside rising housing and living costs. Many tenants, myself included, spend most of our income on rent alone.

But the movements that have sprung up behind Jeremy Corbyn and his promise of real change show that workers and young people have had enough of Tory and Blairite rule.

With May's shambolic Brexit negotiations, there is a real possibility of another general election on the horizon - and of a Corbyn-led Labour government coming to power. The billionaires find this even more worrying than leaving the neoliberal EU.

It is the workers who produce all the wealth in society. But capitalists line their pockets with what we produce.

Without the workers, the rich would have nothing. They would rather the profits they steal from us sustain their opulent lifestyle of gigantic mansions and gold taps in their bathrooms than fund public services.

And they will not give this wealth up so easily. All this is just a glimpse of what would happen if an anti-austerity government tried to challenge them for their ill-gotten gains.

John McDonnell has previously given a muddled response on the issue, saying "I don't think there will be" a run on the pound - massive reduction in currency value - in the event of Corbyn-led Labour government. The FT report is further proof that such an event is to be expected.

But what is the socialist answer to this? To prevent wealth flooding out of the country, a socialist government would have to nationalise the banks and top corporations under democratic workers' control and management.

It would also have to implement capital controls - limits on money coming into and out of the country.

These measures would need to be immediate to take economic power out of the hands of the capitalist class. Only democratic, socialist planning of the economy can answer the threat of economic sabotage.

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