Corbyn to European socialist leaders: we can negotiate an alternative Brexit plan and then take on the tax dodgers together

Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, is attending the Party of European Socialists meeting in Madrid today to discuss Labour’s alternative Brexit plan and how to clamp down on tax dodgers with European leaders.

In private meetings with Prime Ministers and party leaders, Corbyn will lay out how Labour’s Brexit alternative is credible and could be negotiated with the EU, following meetings in Brussels yesterday, including with chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.

Jeremy Corbyn will also call for a common front among progressive parties and movements across Europe to reject austerity and work together to tackle the most pressing issues of our time: climate change, the growth of the far right and footloose, tax dodging multinational companies.

Corbyn will say close cooperation across borders is essential to crack down on the “daylight robbery” of tax avoidance. In reference to reports that Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man, is set to reduce his tax bill after moving to Monaco, and following James Dyson’s decision to move his business base to Singapore, Corbyn is expected to tell fellow party leaders: “None of us can allow Britain’s exit from the European Union to be exploited by the whims of big business and the super-rich.”

Ahead of the meetings, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

"The damaging deadlock on Brexit must be broken and following my discussions with European Union leaders and officials, I am in no doubt that Labour’s alternative plan is credible and could be negotiated with the EU.

“But once we have broken the impasse, we also need to should lift our horizons to confront the common challenges we face across borders and find ways to meet them together.

“To build a new economic and environmental consensus, where wealth and power is shared across our communities, not hoarded by the 1%, and our planet's diversity is protected, progressive and popular forces in all countries need to work together.

“None of us can allow Britain’s exit from the European Union to be exploited by the whims of big business and the super-rich. Companies who shift their accounting operations back and forth across borders to minimise their tax bills are carrying out daylight robbery.

“By failing to crack down on aggressive tax avoidance, Theresa May is allowing the British public to be ripped off and exposing the kind of Brexit she and her party want to deliver. She should not stand by as Jim Ratcliffe, who has lobbied against measures to tackle climate change, is reportedly preparing to squirrel away billions in Monaco.

"Progressive parties must work together to build a powerful international movement to defeat the big polluters threatening disaster for our planet, the daylight robbery of tax avoidance and the hatred and division of the far right."

Ends

Notes to Editors

• ·         Jeremy Corbyn will have a bilateral meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, and later join European leaders including Stefan Lovren, Joseph Muscat, Udo Bullmann, Andrea Nahles for a wider meeting.