Tory hypocrisy: Number 10 planning to tear up restrictions on City bosses’ pay while urging pay restraint for rest of us

“Everyone counts or nobody counts.”

Downing Street is planning on tearing up restrictions on the pay packets of city bosses in a bid to showcase the benefits of Brexit, while at the same time urging ordinary workers to show pay restraint.

The revelations, made by the i, come as the government tells rail workers to show pay restraint, as the biggest rail strikes in 30 years kicked off today.

The i reports that: “Steve Barclay, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, wrote to Chancellor Rishi Sunak with a plan for “deregulatory measures to reduce the overall burden on business” and attract more firms to the UK.

“One key plank of the plan included “removing restrictions on director (and specifically NED [non-executive director]) remuneration as suggested by the London Stock Exchange Group to improve London’s attractiveness for listings.”

It’s worth highlighting that the UK’s current rules on corporate pay are based on the country’s previous membership of the European Union, which included a cap on bonus pay, set at no more than 100 per cent of fixed pay or double that with explicit shareholder approval.

Reacting to the news, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tweeted: “So there we have it: the “benefits of Brexit” are bigger bonuses for city execs, while everyone else faces a cost of living crisis

“It’s almost as if Nigel Farage was a city trader himself once…”

Dave Ward, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union tweeted: “This government now openly at war with working class people. Suppressing wages, attacking unions, demonising those want to fight back.

“All whilst planning to up City bosses pay.

“Back every worker and every union that makes a stand.

“Everyone counts or nobody counts.”

Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward

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