British Members of Parliament (MPs) are due a £2,000 pay rise on the same day they may be hiking taxes for working Britons.
British MPs are set to be given an additional £2,000 ($2,717.94) by the British taxpayer on top of their current £81,932 ($11,1343.13) salary from the 1st of April 2022.
Working Britons, however, be left without on April Fool’s Day, with higher gas bills, higher council tax, and a National Insurance increase looking likely for 1.2 million Brits earning over £50,070, who will be driven into the 40 per cent higher rate tax band under Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak’s latest plans, The Telegraph reports.
If the tax-free personal allowance of £12,570 does not rise in line with forecast inflation, an additional 1.5 million workers on low incomes will find themselves pushed into the 20 per cent basic tax rate as well, so both the working and middle class will be hammered.
Meanwhile, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) which regulates MPs’ wages does appear to be planning to increase their salaries in line with public sector wage increases — although new rules implemented during the coronavirus pandemic do allow IPSA to freeze or decrease pay rises.
It has released a statement saying that “A decision on MPs’ pay for 2022-23 will be taken early in 2022” and adding that it “will take into account ONS [Office for National Statistics] data as well as other relevant information”.
IPSA boss John O’Connell suggested that “Politicians’ pay should be linked to the country’s economic performance — to show we’re all in it together”.
Households will be hit by an increase of as much as 56 per cent in their energy bills, with calculations from Investec, the investment bank, suggesting a typical Briton’s energy bill will go up from £1,277 to almost £2,000 a year, The Telegraph reports.
Alongside this energy bill rise, an increase in national insurance of 1.25 percentage points will come in in the same month, costing the average worker an additional £255 a year.
The new taxes currently planned by the government may hit Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives’ new voters — formerly Labour-supporting ‘Red Wall’ voters — the hardest. The Conservative Party’s once 80-seat parliamentary majority won in the 2019 general election was in large part delivered by former Red Wall voters choosing to vote Conservative, some for the first time ever.
The ‘Red Wall’ refers to industrial areas of Britain that were once home to coal mines, steel plants, and manufacturing, largely in the North of England. These areas are in large part comprised of working-class individuals who traditionally supported Labour — whose traditional colour is red.
Such areas have been compared to the so-called ‘Rust Belt’ in the United States.
The threat of new taxes combined with multiple lockdown-breaching scandals has resulted in the Conservatives dropping behind their socialist opposition, Labour, in opinion polls. The latest poll conducted by Redfield and Wilton on the 3rd of January 2022 shows the Conservative Party at 35 per cent and the Labour Party three points ahead at 38 percent.
Despite British voters having to tighten their belts this year, multiple MPs have been embroiled in expenses scandals throughout the pandemic.
28-year-old Labour MP Zarah Sultana, for example, billed the taxpayer over £700 for an “influencer kit” in 2021, which included an ‘influencer’ ring light and Canon camera. The far-left Labour MP is known for her controversial far-left political opinions, such as support for statue-topplers, which she airs openly on social media.
Labour MP and former shadow government minister Jess Phillips, meanwhile, spent £61,000 of taxpayer’s money in expenses from 2019-2020, which included claiming back a £28 ticket for her attendance at the National Refugee Women’s Conference.
Conservative MPs were also caught fleecing the taxpayer — collectively claiming almost £3 million in rent expenses between April and November 2o20 despite 42 of them owning homes they rent out to others for at least £10,000 a year in income.
Speaking to Breitbart News, Ben Harris-Quinney, chairman of the Bow Group conservative think tank, criticised the government’s tax hikes, saying that “the cost of living crisis is one that has largely been inflicted on us by politicians, especially when it comes to energy bills”.
Harris-Quinney laid the blame for the tax rises on the Conservative’s new green strategy, saying: “MPs are obsessed with a net-zero strategy that will be the most expensive policy in history, and they haven’t properly consulted the public on. It will decimate the economy, and force millions into economic hardship, whilst MPs have allowances and pay rises isolating them from the effects”.
The Bow Group chairman also condemned any rise in MPs’ salaries, saying any rise should be linked to “performance” not “public sector pay inflation”. Calling for more power to the taxpayer, Harris-Quinney said taxpayers should have the power to “change and censure their MPs when they don’t feel they are earning their wages”.
“Good MPs should be paid reasonably, but we need democratic reform and a primary and recall system for MPs that means if the public don’t feel they’re delivering they can be removed and replaced, regardless of whether they are in a safe seat, or what central parties or Westminster bureaucrats think”, he said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.