As Labour’s Corbyn looms, super-rich Brits disappear

Bin London ritish Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn isn’t even prime minister, and Britain’s ranks of the super-wealthy are already thinning out.

The U.K. was home to just 4,580 lucky people with a net worth of more than US$50 million last year, according to real estate firm Knight Frank. That’s two-per-cent fewer than in 2016 and a six-per-cent decline over five years. The striking thing about the U.K. drop is that it happened as the global ranks of the $50-millionplus crowd swelled by 10 per cent to almost 125,000.

Of the countries included in the survey, Nigeria, Turkey and Egypt were the only others to see a year-on-year decline.

None of this is to say that Britain’s allure to the private jet set has been fatally compromised by Brexit and the U.K. Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn is running on a platform of higher taxes on the wealthy and nationalization. robust polling for Corbyn’s ever-more socialist opposition Labour Party, at least notyet.

Figures culled by Knight Frank from the Bank for International Settlements show the U.K. was second only to the U.S. in terms of increased money flows into the country from “nonbanks.” Non-banks include individual, corporate and government deposits. The number of super-wealthy Brits is still expected to increase by another 16 per cent by 2022, according to the report.

Given that inequality is fuelling populism around the world, some would argue that it might be better if the numbers didn’t surge again. If Corbyn manages to win on his platform of punitive taxation and nationalization, they almost certainly won’t.