This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Jeremy Corbyn has said he will target tax dodgers if he becomes prime minister at the general election as he said billionaires have a moral obligation to pay their fair share.

In an election rally in Telford, Shropshire, eight miles from where he grew up, Corbyn said a Labour majority government would “chase down” those who attempt a “clever wheeze” with their tax.

His comments come after Boris Johnson said in the Telegraph that Corbyn would slap new taxes on people of all income levels – not just billionaires – and that the party “viscerally detests” those who have a profit motive.

Q&A What is a ‘marginal’ seat? Show Hide Marginal seats are parliamentary constituencies that have had a history of changing hands between parties, or in which the incumbent MP has a very small majority. Eleven seats were won by fewer than 100 votes in 2017. Often parties will target marginal seats with extra campaigning resources, as they are the places where they feel they are most likely to affect the balance in the House of Commons. There are several seats, including Kensington, Dudley North, Southampton Itchen and Newcastle-Under-Lyme, where the 2017 margin between the Conservatives or Labour winning the seat was between 20 and 30 votes. The most marginal seat in the country, though, is North East Fife, held by the SNP over the Liberal Democrats by just two votes. A three-way marginal, where the vote has recently been close between three parties, is much rarer.

Corbyn said: “My personal views on billionaires is that they’ve obviously got a great deal of money therefore they’re in a very strong position to pay a lot more tax.

“So our tax plans will affect the richest 5% of our society. We will be chasing down tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax havens because at the end of the day if you’re doing some very clever wheeze, which somehow or other is avoiding your levels of taxation, you should be paying. Go further away [and] what happens then? You’ve got an underfunded school, hospital and public services as a whole.”

I will be a very different kind of PM from Johnson, insists Corbyn Read more

The Labour leader was cheered with chants of: “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” as he spoke to activists and campaigners at the University of Wolverhampton’s Telford campus after introducing their candidate in the Tory-Labour marginal seat, currently held by Conservative Lucy Allan.

He added: “You’ve got a moral obligation to pay your taxes. However rich, powerful and famous you are, one day you might have a heart attack. Then you’re going to need the public services.”

He also criticised Tory comments on Grenfell Tower victims not using common sense to escape the fatal fire as “shameful”.

“They shamefully seem to think the victims of the Grenfell fire died because they didn’t have the common sense to save themselves.

“I’ll tell you what’s common sense: don’t put flammable cladding on people’s homes. That’s common sense.”

Leader of the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has apologised after saying on a radio show that: “I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building. It just seems the common sense thing to do.”

Fellow Tory Andrew Bridgen also had to apologise after defending him.

Corbyn also said: “Don’t close fire stations and don’t cut firefighters. That’s common sense. And don’t ignore residents when they tell you their home is a death trap.”

Corbyn used his speech to say he would be a “very different” kind of prime minister should he be elected.

He said he did not believe he was “born to rule” but would share power out to everyone who helped build the Labour movement.

The Labour leader grew up in a village just eight miles from where he delivered his speech, and said: “It’s great to be here in Telford. I feel like I’m at home.”

Labour’s candidate for the seat, Katrina Gilman, spoke before Corbyn took to the platform and focused on future A&E services in the town, which she claimed were being downgraded, and the closure of a women and children’s centre.