More than 100 UK-based millionaires including Gary Lineker, screenwriter Richard Curtis and city trader turned wealth tax campaigner Gary Stevenson are asking Andy Burnham to tax their wealth and “reinvest” it into Britain.

“We want you to tax us,” reads their letter, organised by Patriotic Millionaires UK and delivered on Thursday. “We’re not talking about higher taxes on those who get up and go to work for their income every day, but on the very richest whose income is derived from the wealth they hold.”

Polling from Patriotic Millionaires shows that 80% of UK millionaires support a 2% tax on wealth over £10m, which the group says would raise £24bn a year for Britain.

Patriotic Millionaires also advocates for reforms to capital gains tax, including equalising it with income tax, to raise an estimated £12bn annually.

Other signatories to the letter include musician Brian Eno, novelist Val McDermid and lawyer Julia Davies.

Lineker said: “Paying your fair share is a basic British value, but so many ordinary people are already paying more than they can afford. Our richest people can do more and most want to.”

Burnham has not ruled out introducing a wealth tax, and has previously suggested he would consider an inheritance tax levy on estates to fund social care.

On his recent Channel 4 documentary ‘How To Get Filthy Rich’, Stevenson argued: “We are in a situation of high and rapidly growing inequality. And it is accelerating.

“This is what people don’t realise. I am not the person in this country advocating for redistribution. I am the person advocating for stopping the redistribution that is currently happening.”

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