Our group has made quite a splash across the pond!
Last Friday, The Guardian published an article – Super-rich warned of ‘pitchforks and torches’ unless they tackle inequality – about what went down at a recent investment conference put on by Spear’s Magazine in London. One of our UK members, Julia Davies, warned the attendees, over 500 members of the global rich and their financial advisors, that if they don’t do more to reduce extreme inequality, they’ll be facing catastrophic levels of social unrest and civil disruption sooner rather than later. She then called on them to turn the tide and take action: “You guys could be part of the turning point that protects your children, your grandchildren and your client’s children and grandchildren. Isn’t that worth something?”
Then last Sunday, The Times published a profile piece of our UK branch – Meet the Patriotic Millionaires who want to pay more tax. Several of our UK members – including Guy Singh-Watson, Geetie Singh-Watson, Jeannie Latenser, Julia Davies, Phil White, Ian Gregg, Nick Marple, Akshay Singal, and Lily Lewis – detailed their reasons for joining the Patriotic Millionaires and supporting our cause. The piece also highlights our group’s open invitation for UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak – who, along with his wife, is worth $529 million – to join.
The Times profile piece is an absolutely, incredibly HUGE deal. For those of you unaware, The Times is one of the top media outlets in the UK, comparable to The New York Times in the US. On average, it reaches over 16 million readers a month. Our group is already well-known across the world, but this piece will undoubtedly raise a great deal more public awareness about our mission and work, and continue to prove to lawmakers in the US, the UK, and everywhere else that the demand for taxing the rich is only going to continue to grow.
The Times piece has since been picked up by the Daily Mail, POLITICO EU, and Vanity Fair. One of our UK members, Phil White, gave an interview on Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine Show. We also have invitations to appear on BBC Radio 4 and Piers Morgan Uncensored. Needless to say, the ball is certainly rolling over in the UK, and we’re here and ready for it!
The fight that the Patriotic Millionaires UK are leading is an almost perfect mirror to our own. The US and UK share more than a language and history – over the past four decades, both of our countries’ governments have pursued neoliberal agendas of privatization and tax cuts for the rich. The result has been an extreme and catastrophic widening of economic inequality on both sides of the Atlantic. And just as we fell into this mess together, we need to work together to pull ourselves out of it.
Our US and UK branches call ourselves “patriotic” because we love our countries, and it is out of this love that we feel inspired to change our countries for the better. We are demanding lawmakers on Capitol Hill and in Westminster do more to raise our taxes and strengthen the social safety net for millions of working people. Otherwise, we know the pitchforks and torches are coming.
