At a time when many in the UK are depending on food parcels and rationing their heating, Shell announced a quarterly profit of £5.1 billion for the period of July to September.
The British based firm paid only £15 million in taxes last year, despite record profits.
“In a year that the UK public saw bills skyrocket and millions were plunged into poverty, it is totally unacceptable that a UK based energy giant paid a pittance in tax to the UK. What’s more, British citizens will see how much more Shell paid to almost every other country and be rightfully seething,” Jonathan Noronha Gant, Fossil Fuel Campaigner at Global Witness, said.
“Despite record profits and enormous CEO pay it’s clear the UK windfall tax simply hasn’t worked. This government has failed to effectively confront the extreme wealth and power yielded by companies like Shell, much to the detriment of its own people.”
Shell made £22 billion in 2022 and paid its CEO £9.7 million.
The massive amount of resources that Shell and other oil companies are sucking up for the benefit of their own shareholders could be put to much better use providing housing, healthcare, and subsidised food and heating for ordinary working and marginalised people.
Under capitalism, however, these firms are going to keep extracting huge amounts of wealth from the rest of us and using part of it to purchase the loyalty of our politicians.
The best way to ensure that ordinary people don’t live in poverty is to have society run by and for ordinary people. This means democratic control of the economy and properly democratic institutions, which don’t allow campaign funding or other involvement of monied interests.
We need socialism.
Recommended reading
The State and Revolution by Lenin
