The Rise of 'British' People Power: "Pay your tax!"

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-rise-of-british-people-power-by-adam-parsons

The Rise of 'British' People Power
By Adam Parsons

This weekend in central London, amidst the falling snow and crowds of Christmas shoppers, British protesters carried out their biggest day of mass action this year - the targeting of major high street retailers to highlight the issue of corporate tax dodging.

On the surface, the cause of the protests might seem nothing new; campaign groups have long pointed out how Britain loses an estimated £100 billion a year to tax dodging by multinational corporations, money that could double funding for the ailing National Health Service and finance poverty reduction programmes throughout the developing world. Many non-governmental organisations, such as the Tax Justice Network, have dedicated years of high-level research and advocacy work to the important field of tax and regulation, boldly declaring on their website homepage that "tax havens cause poverty" - a cause that is seldom discussed around most kitchen tables and widely ignored by most governments.

Yet on Saturday, hundreds of protesters braved the freezing weather and carried out 55 separate protests up and down the country in the name of corporate tax evasion, closing down several high street stores on the busiest shopping day of the year. For a British public renowned for its stiff upper lip and middle class respectability, there is no real precedent for hundreds of people storming through the commercial maelstrom of Oxford Street - without prior permission from police authorities, as in the usual city demonstrations - and chanting such slogans as "Pay Your Tax!", or "Where Did All The Money Go? He Sent It Off To Monaco!". In Brighton, some activists even glued themselves onto store windows as a way of stopping trading.

Contrary to what the establishment Daily Telegraph newspaper reported, the main victims of the protests were not the people trying to buy Christmas presents for their loved ones. As Jeremy Wight reported in Red Pepper, most shoppers weren't at all annoyed with the tax protesters - in fact, many of them joined in the sit-down demonstrations and showed "a spontaneous outpouring of solidarity", even ordinary ‘shoppers' who had known nothing about the cause.

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[xchrom]

1. that is awesome. nt

[ladjf]

2. I hope this movement grows. nt

[Prophet 451]

3. It might

The Tories cuts to, well, the entire country have a lot of the populace very angry. If the economy picks up, the self-obsessed middle will be placated and go back to sleep until it's time to vote for the next Tory sociopath. If not, well...