World Bulletin / News Desk

Britain's Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday joined forces with Dutch leftwing politicians to demand an end to loopholes and tax breaks for wealthy multinationals, which suck funds from key public services.

"It's not right that countries ... compete in a race to the bottom to drive down tax rates and fuel tax-dodging," Corbyn told a meeting organized with the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA).

He said Britain and the Netherlands were among the worst for cutting deals with multinationals.

"We must place real tax justice at the core of our new economic context," Corbyn insisted, referring to Britain's current negotiations to leave the EU next year.

"Tax dodging and the tax regime that allows it to happen hurts us all. It starves our social security systems, our schools, our universities, our hospitals, our infrastructure, our museums, our parks," Corbyn said.

"Close the loopholes that allow rogue companies to dodge their taxes. An economy should work for the people and not the other way around."

His Dutch counterpart, Lodewijk Asscher, leader of the PvdA, agreed, saying: "Europe itself is a tax haven, and the Netherlands is its beach resort."

A former deputy prime minister in the previous Dutch coalition, Asscher hit out at government plans by the business-friendly Liberal VVD party to scrap dividends tax and cut the corporate profit tax rate by 4.0 percent.

"As long as conservative governments are ready to be blackmailed by big companies threatening to go elsewhere... it will always end up with regular taxpayers picking up the bill."

Both men said they aimed to ensure that any Brexit deal must include measures to stem tax avoidance, as well as to ensure multinationals pay their fair share.