LONDON – Gary Lineker did not speak in the abstract. The sports broadcaster and former England striker who once had his BBC contract reviewed for political commentary had a message for Andy Burnham on Thursday: raise my taxes. Lineker was among 120 British millionaires who published an open letter to the new prime minister calling on him to introduce a wealth tax, describing themselves as “proud to pay” and making clear they intended to stay in Britain rather than find a lower-tax jurisdiction.
The letter, released by a group calling itself the Patriotic Millionaires, arrived in Burnham’s third week in office and in the same week the chancellor presented his preliminary fiscal projections to the Treasury. The 120 signatories include the actress Julia Davies and a cross-section of entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals. The letter’s central argument: that wealth concentration harms not just equality but democracy and environmental stability, and that those who have benefited most from British institutions are willing to bear more of their cost.
Patriotic Millionaires put two tax vehicles on the table. A two percent annual charge on assets above ten million pounds, they argued, could raise twenty-four billion pounds a year. Capital gains tax reform would add twelve billion pounds annually. A separate proposal from a group of university economics professors, published ahead of the letter, suggested a two percent minimum effective tax on those with assets above one hundred million pounds, which their modelling estimated would yield ten billion pounds annually.
Burnham’s response was carefully calibrated. “I do believe we need a greater sense of fairness,” he told reporters on Thursday, “and people feeling that things are being done in the right way.” Emma Reynolds, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, welcomed the Patriotic Millionaires initiative but said major tax decisions would be addressed in the autumn budget rather than now. Neither response committed to a wealth tax, and neither ruled one out.
The letter lands as Burnham’s government completes its first set of economic decisions. His first major economic measure cut VAT on household electricity bills to zero, effective October, saving the average household about 45 pounds a year. He funded it by cancelling a digital identity programme. It was a visible, quantifiable relief measure that avoided any structural change to income or capital taxation.
The chancellor Burnham appointed last week is John Healey, whose previous role was Defence Secretary. Healey’s appointment sent a clear signal about fiscal priorities: defence spending would be protected. Healey had resigned from the Starmer cabinet over the pace of the defence commitment, and his arrival at the Treasury confirmed that security spending would not be traded against social spending in the early budget round. Where that leaves new revenue measures such as wealth taxes and capital gains reform remains unresolved.
Lineker has not shied from political terrain before. He was briefly suspended by the BBC in 2023 following a social media post comparing Conservative rhetoric on asylum seekers to language associated with 1930s Germany, and returned to his presenting role after a walkout by production staff. The moment established him as someone willing to use his public platform at personal cost. His signature on the Patriotic Millionaires letter places him in the same register, using his financial position the same way.
The arithmetic behind each proposal is disputed. The Office for Budget Responsibility has previously modelled wealth taxes with mixed projections, given the difficulty of valuing illiquid assets such as property portfolios, private businesses, and fine art. The professors’ proposal, focused on higher asset thresholds, addresses some of those valuation difficulties by applying only above one hundred million pounds, but the population it reaches is small. The Patriotic Millionaires’ lower threshold of ten million pounds captures a wider group and would yield more, but brings significant administrative complexity in implementation, particularly for business owners whose wealth is tied up in private companies with no easily verified market price.
According to Al Jazeera, the Patriotic Millionaires group has previously operated in the United States and several European countries, building a network of wealthy individuals who publicly advocate for higher taxes on themselves. The UK chapter’s letter is the first addressed to a Labour prime minister in the current parliamentary term, and the government’s measured response suggests officials do not yet want to anchor the autumn budget to a single measure before broader fiscal modelling is complete.
The question Burnham has not yet answered is whether a government that opened its economic programme with a cost-of-living cut costing less than a billion pounds is prepared to move on a structural wealth measure in the autumn budget it has described as the most consequential since 2010. The letter is a political resource, not a policy. What happens next depends not on the millionaires who signed it, but on whether Healey and Burnham have decided the political moment is ready to use it.
