Labour are right – let’s do away with ‘non-dom’ status

Any Conservative who doubts that Labour’s promise to abolish non-dom status could seriously damage the government needs to look at the fate of Rishi Sunak. So recently the heir apparent to the Tory leadership, Sunak has this week plunged to bottom in a poll of the most popular cabinet members. It comes, of course, just a couple of weeks after the revelation that Sunak’s wife was living in Britain as a non-dom – a status which according to one estimate could have saved her up to £20 million in tax over the years. And this was a poll of Conservative party members, so goodness knows how much the revelation has done to damage the Chancellor in the eyes of the floating voters whose support the Conservatives will need to stay in government.

No, it is not the ‘politics of envy’ to want non-dom status to be abolished and be replaced with a shorter-term arrangements for the taxation of foreign nationals living in Britain – a term which some Tory MP will no doubt soon foolishly utter.