Nancy Taaffe
“Frankly, the world has changed, things that we thought were absolutely fair practice ten years, 20 years ago, 30 years ago aren’t any more.” So said Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party (Ukip), when quizzed about his off-shore tax account in the Isle of Man.
What Farage is really saying is, ‘I got away with it because that’s been the morality of the last 30 years and when in Rome…’
But what has been the morality of the last 30 years? It is a morality that acquiesced as MPs fiddled expenses while drawing salaries of £60,000 a year.
One that allowed bankers to asset-strip companies, deprive whole towns of work and then award themselves huge bonuses.
A morality that allowed police officers to take payments from the likes of Rupert Murdoch and other media moguls and work hand in glove in smearing and criminalising people campaigning for justice.
A morality that wags its finger at so-called ‘scroungers’ while companies at the top evade tax to the tune of £123 billion.
This morality is one that the Socialist Party has campaigned and organised against for the last ten, 20, 30 years.
Same as all the rest
Tax expert Richard Murphy has said: “There are only two reasons to set up an Isle of Man trust – one is secrecy and the other is tax avoidance and the two normally go together.”
Amazingly Farage has stood up in the European Parliament and criticised tax havens and specifically named the Isle of Man as an example of lax tax legislation!
The truth is this scandal shows Farage is in the same category as all the other anti-working class politicians. Ukip is a party for the rich, and workers should have no truck with it.
Incredibly, after the TUC march of 2011 when a quarter of a million marched against cuts, Ukip members organised a march calling for more cuts! When Farage talks about the 16 million unemployed in the European Union or attacks bankers or bureaucrats, it is just rhetoric, just as his speeches about off-shore tax havens are.
The trade union leaders failed to build the movement after millions went on strike in defence of public sector pensions in November 2011, they have also been proved wrong in urging us all to sit on our hands and wait for a Labour government. We must not allow Ukip to step into this void.
Represent yourself!
The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is appealing for workers to come forward and represent themselves in 2014 and beyond.
We are the ones who have consistently argued against deregulation of the city, casino speculation, privatisation, outsourcing and a general denigration of life for the majority of people both in Britain and in Europe.
Represent yourself! Don’t leave it to a dodgy businessman in a pinstripe suit who has been exposed as the fraud that we always knew he was.
