Investigate press-manufactured “millionaire exodus” or step down, NGOs demand of press body IPSO

A dossier documenting years of misleading and inaccurate reporting by the UK’s leading news outlets on an alleged exodus of wealth from the UK was submitted by a coalition of NGOs today to IPSO, the UK’s biggest press complaints body.¹

In a public letter addressed to Culture Secretary Nandy and Chancellor Healey, and published in the Byline Times² this morning, the NGOs – including Oxfam, Hacked Off, Patriotic Millionaires UK, Tax Justice UK and the Tax Justice Network – are calling on the UK government to require the papers to sign up to an approved press regulator if IPSO, a self-regulating body, fails to investigate the “millionaire exodus” reporting.

The dossier details news articles from The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, The Independent, The Spectator, The Telegraph, This is Money and The Times that were either based on unsubstantiated claims or that misleadingly attributed claims to a source who either never made the claims, or openly refuted them.

Key source on millionaire exodus drops claims, accuses papers of spin

Much of the years-long reporting on a millionaire exodus was almost entirely based on the claims of a single study, the Henley Private Wealth Migration report. The study has now admitted it does not have the data to back up the exodus claims, after civil society organisations scrutinised its methodology.³

Despite the public admission, much of the press have continued to report a wealth exodus is underway. The Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Scottish Mail on Sunday are singled out in the dossier for continuing to use the Henley report’s statistics months after it abandoned them.⁴

But far more damning is how the publications misleadingly reported on what the Henley report actually said:

• The publications said the Henley report blamed the Labour party’s electoral victory for kicking off the exodus in 2024. But the report said it started with Brexit.
• The publications said the report warned that migrating millionaires would take £66 billion out of the UK with them. But the report said they would not do so.
• The publications said the report determined that millionaires were leaving because of tax. But the report said tax was only one of several reasons.

The publisher of the Henley report has accused the publications of “deliberately” spinning its report’s claims:

“We have never claimed that Labour tax policies were the sole or root cause. If papers such as the Telegraph, Times, Mail, decide to add their own layer on to that, and deliberately exclude from their story our standard reminder to them that these were the Conservatives’ tax changes, then I think your argument is with them not with us… We have consistently reported a net outflow of millionaires from the UK from 2016 (and not just since Labour took office last year).”⁵

Misreporting ramps up ahead of Autumn budget statement

The dossier also documents recent misreporting published in the run-up to the Autumn budget statement. This includes a wave of news articles claiming billionaire David Reuben, who has been resident in Monaco since 2014⁶, moved to Monaco this past summer, and another wave of articles claiming billionaires worth $160 billion have left the UK since Labour took power in 2024, based on a Bloomberg news report⁷.

A review⁸ of Bloomberg’s news report by the Tax Justice Network also published today revealed that the reporting was inconsistent with Bloomberg’s own data:

• Half of the listed billionaires who are claimed to collectively be worth $160 billion and to have left the UK since Labour took power either: (i) were still in the UK, (ii) had already moved before Labour took power in 2024; or (iii) were attributed wealth that was not theirs or not theirs alone.
• Only $39 billion (24%) of the $160 billion reportedly lost from the UK with their migration was UK-based to begin with, according to Bloomberg’s data. This $39 billion largely consists of wealth that cannot be feasibly relocated, like real estate empires and two English football teams.
• Much of the wealth included in the $160 billion tally belongs to non-British enterprises founded and headquartered outside of the UK long ago, including enterprises like German sportswear adidas, the Norwegian airline, and one of India’s biggest real estate investment vehicles.

The publications’ years-long misreporting has been repeatedly cited in parliamentary debates, which the dossier also documents, and most frequently by the now-Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith MP.⁹

News reporting on the millionaire exodus is widely credited¹⁰ for the previous Labour government’s decision to weaken plans announced by the Conservatives to reduce the special tax break the UK gives to wealthy individuals who live in the UK but who are allowed to pay tax as though they live abroad – ie, “non-doms”. A recent HMRC review has confirmed the exodus of the press’s scaremongering has not materialised.¹¹

“Do-or-die moment” for IPSO

The NGOs have urged Secretary Nandy and Chancellor Healey to make this a “do-or-die moment” for the IPSO system and “a wake-up call for anyone concerned about how the UK protects its free press from the influence of media barons.”

Less than 1% of complaints to IPSO succeed.¹² IPSO has never exercised its power to conduct a Standards Investigation, which the NGOs are calling on it today to do.

A review by the Press Recognition Panel, the watchdog regulating the regulators, concluded that IPSO acts as “a de facto trade body rather than a regulator” and “does not provide the public with effective protection from press harm.”¹³

The NGOs write in today’s open letter that should IPSO fail to investigate, the government must “see through the self-regulation charade and finally require newspapers to join an approved independent regulator, in line with the findings of every major inquiry into press standards over the last century.” There is currently only one government approved press regulator, IMPRESS.

Online public action for news correction launches

Supporting the challenge to the press’s misreporting, media monitoring watchdog Newscord also launched today an online action campaign enabling members of the public to send letters to news publications demanding corrections over their misreporting of a wealth exodus from the UK.¹⁴

The campaign also enables members of the public to send letters to their MPs raising awareness of the dossier submitted to IPSO today and the coalition’s demand for approved regulation of the press.

Comments from the NGOs

A spokesperson for the Tax Justice Network said:

“The wealth exodus is trickledown economics in a new guise. It’s cheap fiction told to scare people and governments off taxing extreme wealth, which most UK millionaires actually support doing.”

A spokesperson for Hacked Off said:

“These news publishers are read by millions of people every day and make a significant impact on public understanding, yet they remain outside any independent form of regulation and persist with their own press-controlled complaints body, “IPSO”.  The Government must take a stand in the fight against disinformation, and end falsities in the press by requiring all newspapers to leave IPSO and join a genuinely independent regulator instead.”

-ENDS-

Read the letter to IPSO

Read the open letter

Visit the online action for corrections

Notes to Editor

1. Read the full report send to ISPO here.
2. Read the open letter in Byline Times here.
3. The Henley Private Wealth Migration report dropped its millionaire migration estimates, acknowledging there isn’t data to support such claims.
4. The Henley report’s millionaire migration estimates were reported months after in abandoned them in two Telegraph articles, in the Sunday Telegraph and the Scottish Mail on Sunday.
5. See statement from Henley & Partners to the Tax Justice Network at the end of this report.
6. TaxWatch UK confirmed that official filings showed David Reuben had been resident in Monaco since 2014. While the Times has issued a correction, other papers who cited the Times’ reporting have not as of writing.
7. See the 4 October 2026 Bloomberg article headline “London Takes a Hit as Super Rich Worth $160 Billion Exit UK”
8. Read the Tax Justice Network’s review of the Bloomberg article here.
9. See now-Shadow Chancellor Andrew Griffith MP’s statements here: Wednesday 22 January 2025, Tuesday 13 May 2025 and Wednesday 21 May 2025.

• See the following news reporting:
  • Sky News: “Rachel Reeves is to water down her crackdown on the non-dom tax status after analysis showed it had prompted an exodus of millionaires.”
  • CNBC: “The U.K. is to soften some planned changes to its controversial non-dom tax rule following concerns of a millionaire exodus, the Treasury has confirmed.”
  • The Independent: “Reeves to water down tax raid on non-doms amid exodus of millionaires”
  • The Times: “Rachel Reeves to relax non-dom tax rule amid millionaire exodus
• See the HMRC review here.
• See the Press Recognition Panel’s review of IPSO’s complaint process here.
• See note 12.
• See the NewsCord action here.