Campaigners call + celebrate: no rate rises from the Bank of England

This morning, we headed down to Threadneedle Street to call on the Bank of England not to raise interest rates, landing photos in The Telegraph, The Guardian, and the Express - and were very pleased to celebrate their decision to hold rates at 3.75% later that afternoon.

Amidst our chanting: “Bank of England: no rate rises, We can't handle higher prices!”, and with support from the Cost of Living Action coalition and Tax Justice UK, we also handed out leaflets to make our message clear: higher rates are the wrong tool to fight the supply-side inflation we’re facing right now. 

Far from helping to tackle the cost of living crisis, all higher rates have done since the Bank of England started raising them in 2022, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is 

• pushed up debt, rent, and mortgage payments for ordinary people and businesses

• increased the cost of government borrowing at the worst possible time

• slowed investment in renewable energy, the very thing we need to bring down our future bills for good, and 

• handed the big banks years of *record-breaking* windfall profits directly at our expense.

2026 was meant to be the year that rates kept coming down, but the ongoing war in Iran means rumours had been swirling about what the monetary policy committee members would do today. While the banks had already started pricing higher rates in - by pulling or renegotiating mortgage deals - to protect their profits, to the point where Rachel Reeves called a meeting with them last Wednesday to discuss how lenders should protect the most vulnerable. 

Just yesterday, Lloyds bank reported a 33% jump in profits for the first three months of the year, compared to 2025, thanks to higher rates. For years, the big banks have been raking in record-breaking profits like these without having to lift a finger, as higher rates have pulled in more interest from their own customers and the rest of us, thanks to their risk-free reserves held at the Bank of England and ultimately covered by the Treasury, to the tune of £26 billion a year.

The very least the government can do is #TaxTheBanks to claw back some of these windfall profits to help support those hit hardest by the cost of living crisis. Chancellor Rachel Reeves could’ve raised £12.5 billion had she actioned our proposal in last November’s Autumn Budget - more than enough to prevent the freeze on NI and income tax thresholds -  instead of squeezing the pips of ordinary people and small businesses by freezing income tax and national insurance thresholds. With interest rates set to stay at current rates for the foreseeable, we hope this policy option isn’t off the table. If you haven’t yet, join nearly 70,000 others and sign the petition to #TaxTheBanks 

Many thanks to photographer Jess Hurd for these fantastic shots and a huge thanks to all our supporters whose donations helped make this action a reality.