A record number of millionaires could leave the United Kingdom this year as political turmoil and the potential for higher taxes under a future Labour government reduce the appeal of what was once among the top destinations for the rich.
As many as 9,500 people with at least $1 million in liquid, investable assets, will leave the country, more than double the number that left in 2023, according to provisional estimates contained in a report Tuesday by migration advisers Henley & Partners.
“These figures reflect a steady accumulation of factors detracting from the UK’s appeal to high-net-worth individuals,” Hannah White, CEO of the Institute for Government, wrote in the report. “The hangover from Brexit continues to be felt, with the City of London no longer seen as the financial center of the world.”
The report is based on data on 150,000 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) tracked by investment firm New World Wealth. The firm only counts people who stay in their new country more than half of the year, and focuses primarily on company founders, chairs, CEOs, presidents, directors and managing partners.
The continuing exodus from the UK — 16,500 millionaires left between 2017 and 2023 — is part of a global mass migration of the rich that appears to be accelerating. The Henley Private Wealth Migration report found that 128,000 millionaires are set to relocate this year, beating last year’s record by 8,000.
“As the world grapples with a perfect storm of geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty and social upheaval, millionaires are voting with their feet in record numbers,” Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners, said in a press release.
You really need to read the article IMO, OP only post a half cutout for some reason???
That would probably mean Labour gets about 80% of the seats. I seriously doubt UK will be able to right itself under the current political system.
Because then labor will increase taxes to improve services, and people will not feel the improvement and think they get nothing, because it takes time to build what Conservatives have torn down.
Labor is probably lucky if they get 2 terms. And they need to get things passed in the house of lords, which will undermine the Labor government. Then the people will forget how shitty Conservatives are, and vote them back in, because they don’t feel Labor is doing a good enough job with their money.
This will cause an absolute majority to Conservatives because of the idiotic first past the post system, and Conservatives will tear down everything Labor has built, either good or bad.
The first past the post system is a disease that undermines democracy to make it almost totally dysfunctional. We see the same in USA.
It’s an attempt to sacrifice democracy for efficiency, and the end result is that both are ruined.
Now whether millionaires are fleeing or not IDK, but they may not be worth much for UK society any way. Millionaires use more public services and pay less, so it may in fact be good riddance, unless they actually contribute. But I do believe it may be a symptom of a society that doesn’t work as well as it used to, so those that have the means, choose other options.
They don’t need to increase taxes to do that. They can print as much pounds as needed to put all the available labor needed to improve services and infrastructure as fast as possible. Faster than if they had to tax the money first. I don’t know if they’ll do that though. :D
No they can’t, that creates hyper inflation and ruins the economy. If that was an option, why do you think not every government does that instead of taxes?
I believe this is false and it misunderstands how the system actually works but I don’t have the energy to go too much into it. Briefly:
Simply consider the case where you have removed X pounds of investment by having those pounds moved to another country. This is deflationary. Replace those X pounds with new pounds in the UK. This covers that deflation. An inflationary effect might occur in the country where the original pounds went to be spent. If the money is instead not spent and just stored in various unproductive assets, then there’s no effect in that country either.
Additionally, more money does not necessarily mean more inflation, let alone hyperinflation. Look up the velocity of money equation. There are a few more variables that interplay with the supply of money. In short, if you have the real resources needed in a part of the economy where you want higher production (production capacity, labor, metal, brick, oil, electricity, etc.) you can spend some amount of new money that will result in increased production without incurring inflation. This is standard economics, nothing controversial about it.
Not only it’s an option but governments have always spent new money as well as taxed existing. In fact they cannot tax before spending since they create the pounds in circulation. They cannot tax pounds from citizens who don’t have them. I know this isn’t what’s being promulgated by the conventional econ 101 wisdom, but if you think about it, it’s an obvious fact. There’s plenty of examples where governments have done public investment by spending new money into the economy which did not result in inflation, let alone hyperinflation.
I suggest watching or listening to one of Randall Wray’s intro to MMT lectures, especially the longer ones that go into the nature and origins of money. They’re eye-opening.
Every attempt at solving a state deficit by just printing more money has resulted in inflation. I don’t have to read anything, I have more than 30 years experience and interest in national economics that show a perfectly 100% predictable picture that this would be 100% certain to cause inflation.
You can’t make theory circumvent reality.
I didn’t say anything about solving a state deficit although that’s another interesting topic. Public debt being private savings and all that. What I said has been demonstrated plenty in reality. I’m aware that plenty of economics theorists and practitioners reject these ideas by assigning that something is reality while ignoring other parts of reality that don’t match. That said more and more come on board. I’ve had this conversation before. 🥹 All good.
That part is true.
“printing” money happens very very often. The US constantly prints money AND increases it’s debt yet the dollar stays strong. You have to remember value of a currency is imaginary, it’s just a contract where we agree X is X and Y is Y.
While yes you can devalue a currency by printing money, you can also increase its value by strengthening the system it’s printed into. If we print money to build and improve, the UK becomes more desirable and therefore it’s currency more valuable despite it’s increased monetary supply.
It’s alot more complicated than Print more worth less. Hell I expected high inflation after COVID due to increased printing, and while inflation did happen, it was not for that reason, it was pure greed.