When ‘boycott’ isn’t quite the right word

Boycott Amazon was the message from Margaret Hodge MP in last weekend’s Observer. This comes in the wake of new revelations about just how little UK tax is paid by Amazon and other corporate giants Starbucks and Google. According to Conservative MP Charlie Elphicke, Amazon’s UK sales amounted to £3.9 billion last year, but it paid just 2.5 per cent tax on its estimated profits thanks to channelling sales through its Luxembourg HQ. There is a feeling that although it is legal, it isn’t fair that a company which has warehouses and employs 15,000 people in the UK doesn’t pay enough tax.

Some argue that it is down to HMRC to tighten these tax loopholes so as to prevent multi-national corporations from taking advantage of them. Others, frustrated with the impotence of the system, say we should flex our consumer power and bring about change with a boycott.

Boycott is a fascinating and revealing word, coined when the Irish ostracised Charles Cunningham Boycott in 1880.