Corbyn warns he’ll clobber the middle class on tax to pay for public services

THE middle classes should be prepared to pay higher taxes under Labour, Jeremy Corbyn suggested.

The Opposition leader said everyone should pay their ‘fair share’, calling taxation a ‘moral imperative’.

But he argued both the middle classes and the well-off should pay for betterfunded public services.

It came as Mr Corbyn used his New Year message to claim Labour represented ‘a new centre ground’ in British politics. He said that following last year’s General Election the party was a ‘government in waiting’, getting closer to power.

In an interview Mr Corbyn gave his strongest suggestion yet that Labour in power would hammer the middle classes.

His comments were in contrast to an attempt during his election campaign and over recent months to reassure voters that only the richest would pay more.

‘I do say to the middle classes and the well-off, one day you will be ill – you’ll need the NHS,’ he told The Sunday Mirror. ‘And your kids may not be able to buy a house. They’re not going to get a council place because they’re not in desperate need. Think about it. Are we a society that houses everybody? Or are we going to be a society that is the lowest paid, worst housed, most indebted country in Europe? Because that’s where we’re heading at the moment.’

He added: ‘We must all pay our fair share. There’s a moral imperative…We will raise tax at the top end in order to invest for the rest of society. I want to lead a Labour government that will do that.’

He criticised ‘systematic abuses of the system’ by international corporations, adding: ‘It is incredibly reprehensible to make vast sums then shift the profits elsewhere.’

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