Interview with UK Uncut

Islam Times spoke to Rebecca Davies from UK Uncut to gain an insight into the campaign and its goals.

Would you briefly tell us about UK Uncut and it’s aims?

UK Uncut have come about through social networking sites like Twitter, there is a hashtag used which is UK Uncut and people will be using it in anti-cut demonstrations, anything from student demonstrations to local demos around town halls, public spending, job losses in local areas.

But really it’s an argument for fairer taxes. What we want to do is name and shame tax avoiders. Now that could be rich individuals like Philip Green who we targeted today, or Vodafone, which we targeted a number of weeks ago and indeed today. This highlights in the British public’s mind the issue of tax justice. We want people to see there is an alternative to the cuts and the alternative is to make tax avoiders pay because currently although it is legal to do it we believe it’s immoral and companies and individuals are using very clever ways to avoid paying tax, and we think that would be the answer to dealing with the deficit.

Where did the idea for this campaign actually come from or how did it start?

Like a big bang really. First there was no UK Uncut and then there was all of a sudden. The fact that it has come through social networking sites is a bit of a phenomenon in itself. There is no central organising leadership kind of thing, it has happened very spontaneously and there were 23 different cities that were effected by action today. People have been organising locally. The anger against the cuts is very widespread and people are just starting to realise now that there is an alternative, these aren’t necessary cuts and it’s about political ideology from the coalition rather then necessity.

What Kind of action have you taken so far against these big tax evaders, in particular Phillip Green?

This morning there were 23 actions that were put up on the website, Twitter has also gone mad today, but we will be putting out a press release once we find out exactly how many events took place.

Certainly there were lots of interesting creative actions, there was a sit down protest in Topshop, there was also protestors glueing there hands to glass windows in Topshops in Brighton and we certainly made a mark and put it on the public agenda as a national issue. It is important that people realise there is a way out, there is an alternative to these cuts and if people pay their own taxes then the country can run better.

We think there was somewhere between 200-300 protestors at the Topshop in central london, they moved between Dorothy Perkins, BHS and Boots. Quite a lot of shoppers got involved themselves once they found out what we were doing, which was great!

For others wanting to get involved in the campaign what would you say is the most effective form of action?

This is about direct action. Non-violent direct action, civil disobedience, we feel very strongly particularly with the Iraq war which many people in this country were opposed to, we did a lot of marching, petitions, and the government completely ignored us and continued to illegally invade Afghanistan and Iraq and has caused a tremendous crisis and loss of life. Now we feel that we need to take a further step and that is to engage in direct action to really make our point heard.

The government hired Phillip Green to advise on cuts in public spending, so they’re good mates and the Tory coalition with the Lib Dems have strong links with the business community. ‘Open to business’ is what George Osbourne has said on several occasions. We don’t think that’s just or fair.

If you owed £5 to the Inland Revenue as an average person they would chase after you for that money but he seems to have gotten away with £300 million not being paid and we want our money back.

We are fighting for fairer financial laws for everybody in this country and we need to totally re-look at the financial system because the current tax system is absolutely unfair and big corporations and rich individuals are getting away with not paying their fair share.

What is your message to the Coalition Government?

We would like to see them chase the tax avoiders and we would like them to stop the cuts, that’s out two messages to them.

The cuts in public spending are effecting every element of our life now. The whole point of us paying taxes is that we contribute to a pot of money which is redistributed to programmes of public spending whether that’s health, education, police, arts and culture, all these things. Its about fair distribution and we need a financial system which is based on fairness and sound economics and the one that we currently have supports corporations and rich individuals hiding away extremely large sums of money.

Like the billions of pounds that Vodafone got away without paying despite losing their court case against the Inland Revenue and it was only in the personal information of George Osbourne in a secret meeting, which meant they actually got away with it. It’s obvious the government is in cahoots with these corporations.

This has been on the agenda of many organisations, trade unions and NGO’s for many many years and now I think in these times of austerity we need to make changes because the public is being asked to make too many sacrifices.


To follow the latest UK Uncut action visit http://www.ukuncut.org.uk/
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