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Yeah, I guess I would agree that there is potentially some political capital in trying to persuade business that the Labour party isn't a threat, but in this circumstance I think the material benefits to be gained from increasing corporation tax outweigh that.
Ignoring the snarkiness from the comment below, the Labour party should be prepared to confront (big) business in some way or another, because in certain ways the needs of capital are often antagonistic to the needs of those who work, to the needs of the environment, to the needs of the social state etc. etc.
That should not be controversial or difficult to understand for a party with the word 'labour' in its name.
Dunt is right in saying that raising taxes now, if framed in a certain way, would help reinforce the narrative that 'the pandemic must be paid back' (it doesn't, in the conventional sense), that government spending is like a household budget (it isn't), and that there are constraints on government borrowing (there aren't really at the moment); all of these can be ways to justify austerity.
However, I've seen little from Labour to suggest that their opposition to increases in corporate tax is due to a desire to counteract these narratives. It seems to me rather that the opposition to these CT rises is intended to signal to big business that a future Labour government poses no threat, after the Corbyn years in which the party was perceived to want to confront capital more directly.
These arguments leave to one side the simple fact that our CT far too low and that raising it is unlikely to have a negative impact on demand—both reasons to back these changes.