Tory profiteers pretend that if we put too much pressure on thieving banks and multinationals they'll desert this country, and that this might damage the economy, their excuses are nonsense because...

1. Starbucks established themselves on British high-streets by using their corporate muscle to wreck local tax-paying businesses. They offer increased rents to profiteering landlords, take-over high-street premises, and destroy original businesses who (not being multinationals) actually paid-in to help fund the infrastructure from which all businesses profit. Starbucks pay UK operating profits as "royalties" to overseas branches, allowing them to re-define profits, for taxation purposes, as "costs". Replacing a tax-paying store with a business that places the same strain on tax-payers but which contributes nothing to maintaining infrastructure, destroys legitimate businesses, depletes resources contributed by honest tax-payers, and ACTIVELY DAMAGES THE ECONOMY

2. Multinationals like Amazon also benefit from taxpayer-funded road and rail infrastructure, for delivering and transporting the goods they sell, and benefit from taxpayer-funded healthcare and education for Amazon employees. They evade billions in tax that should be funding those services, and in luring millions of shoppers away from legitimate tax-paying retailers (who aren't allowed to benefit from overseas tax status) AMAZON ALSO ACTIVELY DAMAGE THE UK ECONOMY

3. Expenses-thieves attempt to justify public sector cuts on grounds of a "deficit" that could be wiped-out if they bothered to tax their friends and sponsors in the multinationals, but govt cuts take billions in public sector salaries OUT of the cash economy, again ACTIVELY DAMAGING THE ECONOMY

4. At a time when the gap between rich and poor is worse than at any time since the abolition of slavery, UK (and particularly London) rents are at an all-time historic high. People are being squeezed harder than ever, but if the government stopped the financial sector from rewarding failure and taxed banks etc properly, if the "worst" possible scenario did pan-out and banks relocate, they'd take their thieving executives with them, and property prices would fall. Not only would tax-payers no longer be robbed to prop-up appallingly-run banks, but this would also mean an immediate improvement to standards of living for millions of hard-working people in terms of reducing housing costs.

2 other angles to the argument:

1. None of them 'produce' anything, they simply sell on other stuff, getting them to pay their tax will not hit UK exports etc

2. If they decided to shut up shop and bugger off to some tax free la la land (the usual idle threat that is trotted out) then there would be a plethora of companies that would fill the void and have to employ people to do so, net effect:
i) Same number of people employed, hopefully by tax paying companies.
ii) Hopefully a more varied selection of companies, giving us some choice!

The protest movement inevitably experiences ups and downs, victories and defeats, sometimes actions are spectacularly successful, however, even actions that seem to have been disappointing at the very least keep the protest movement alive

There have been right-wingers trolling Indymedia, pretending to be activists and trying to spread despondency, but this is hard proof that protests groups like UK Uncut can force their concerns to the centre of political debate, so this is very encouraging. This is just a beginning, we are entering the next level..........

>> 1. None of them 'produce' anything, they simply sell on other stuff, getting them to pay their tax will not hit UK exports etc

Dumb. They are a very large customer to the producers. Coffee / Milk / Sugar.... not to mention other consumers and rent.


2. If they decided to shut up shop and bugger off to some tax free la la land (the usual idle threat that is trotted out) then there would be a plethora of companies that would fill the void and have to employ people to do so, net effect:

More likely the other companies will fill the vacuum => less competition / worse for the consumer.


i) Same number of people employed, hopefully by tax paying companies.

Now theres a complete made up assumption if I ever heard one. What will happen is a load of premises will suddenly become vacant, and a load of people will suddenly become unemployed. It would takes years for the remaining companies to fill the void.


ii) Hopefully a more varied selection of companies, giving us some choice!

No. Less varied. We've just lost one and the other big companies will fill the void.


>> There have been right-wingers trolling Indymedia, pretending to be activists and trying to spread despondency,

Not "right-wing". I'm non wing.


but this is hard proof that protests groups like UK Uncut can force their concerns to the centre of political debate, so this is very encouraging.

Due to the mainstream media.


>> This is just a beginning, we are entering the next level..........

Not necessarily. Might be a one-off and go back down again to level 1.