Kemi Badenoch issues out of touch response to Gary Lineker and fellow millionaires’ call for a wealth tax
Badenoch rejected calls for a wealth tax and repeated the unfounded claim that it could cause a “millionaire exodus”
Kemi Badenoch has indicated that she does not support calls for the wealthiest people in society to pay more tax.
Gary Lineker has joined more than 100 UK-based millionaires who have written to the new prime minister Andy Burnham calling on him to make them pay more tax.
In the letter organised by campaign group Patriotic Millionaires, the signatories said: “We want you to tax us. We can afford it.
“We’re not talking about higher taxes on those who get up and go to work for their income every day, but on the very richest whose income is derived from the wealth they hold.”
A 2% tax on people with over £100 million in wealth would affect fewer than 1,000 of the richest UK households, and generate £10 billion per year, academics at King’s College London and the Paris School of Economics have found.
Asked about Lineker’s plea after she made a speech this morning, Badenoch rejected the idea of a wealth tax, suggesting that those who want to pay more tax can do so voluntarily.
She said: “Gary Lineker is very welcome to pay more tax — he can write a cheque to the Treasury, no one is stopping him.”
“But right now, we are seeing the people who create jobs leaving the country.
“If we keep taxing the people who create the jobs, who generate the growth, we’re not going to have any taxes at all.”
An analysis piece by the Tax Justice Network from last year found that the myth of the millionaire exodus has been overstated in media coverage, following a report by golden passport sellers Henley & Partners.
A Henley & Partners report suggested that 16,500 millionaires supposedly left the UK in 2025.
The Tax Justice Network pointed out that this figure represents less than 1% of UK millionaires.
In addition, the author of the report has admitted that the data behind that claim is “skewed” towards much wealthier centi-millionaires and billionaires, which means it’s unrepresentative of millionaires in general, the majority of whom are not exiting the UK.
Polling suggests that a majority of the public supports introducing a wealth tax. A YouGov poll from July last year found that 75% of respondents said they either strongly or somewhat supported a 2% tax on wealth above £10 million.
Her response sparked criticism online, with one X user pointing out: “Kemi Badenoch translation: We will only make the poor pay more – never the rich. We are the party of the wealthy. If Gary Lineker wants to be a mug, that’s on him.”
Another wrote: “Not a way to run a country though. Perhaps Badenoch would like to give us a list of millionaires who are not prepared to write cheques.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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