BRITISH democracy likes to see itself as among the cleanest and least corrupt in the world, run by good chaps whose word can be taken in good faith and is their bond. This was always part myth, but increasingly what passes for democracy in the UK not only no longer confirms this in any way, but the whole system is not in good health.
This has been confirmed by the shock waves of Brexit, Boris Johnson and his government and their disastrous record on Covid-19 but it goes much deeper and the malaise is much more serious.
The challenges to democracy in the UK are many. There is the rise of corporate power and money alongside the emergence of businessmen (it is always men) who think their wealth allows them to bend, shape and break rules; the issue of dark money funding a host of right-wing causes including UK think tanks and the inadequacy of legislation and regulation in keeping up with the changing political and technological world.
This environment is the subject of a new book Democracy For Sale: Dark Money And Dirty Politics by Peter Geoghegan which deserves to be widely read and debated, and taken as a wake-up call. It looks at the state of the UK while also drawing from the rise of authoritarian right-wing politics in the US with Donald Trump and Viktor Orbn in Hungary.
Geoghegan, based in Glasgow, believes that what has gone wrong is not just about legislation or regulation not being adequate. Rather, he contents: This is not just a process point. There is a much bigger picture. There is a crisis in representation and democracy in the UK. Politicians and even the public make light of it by constantly comparing ourselves with the US and thinking because of this that we are fine.
He cites a study from earlier this year: In a Cambridge University 2020 study I cite in the book the two countries with the highest dissatisfaction in their politics were the UK and US. What do these two share in common? A first-past-the-post system which encourages being polarised and which says to many voters that their vote doesnt count.
Even more fundamental is what UK and US capitalism and society have become: More than this there is the influence of money and power and being able to buy access to politicians and decision-makers. The crisis of democracy can be seen across the world but is particularly pronounced in the UK and US.
The litany in recent years in the UK of democratic abuse is a long one. There was the breaking of electoral law by the Brexit campaign Vote Leave and the Nigel Farage-led Leave.EU. There was businessman Arron Banks and the mysterious origins of the millions he gave the Leave side in the Brexit campaign, still never fully explained. And there was the strange case of the role of the DUP in Northern Ireland acting as a front for Leave monies to get round British electoral regulations a story Geoghegan was central to breaking.
The DUP case saw the loophole in Northern Ireland electoral law (which allowed donations to be kept secret) used to funnel 435,000 from the mainland, under the cover of the DUP to the Leave campaign, via a front called the Constitutional Research Council and Scottish Tory Richard Cook. The law in Northern Ireland has subsequently been changed but this was a classic story of right-wing skullduggery and finding legislative gaps to exploit in a way never intended.
There is the secretive funding of right-wing think tanks in the UK. Bodies such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Centre for Policy Studies and Policy Institute who present themselves as respectable and position themselves to be influential with politicians.
Mark Littlewood, head of the IEA, is unapologetic in the way he talks with deliberate obfuscation about who funds the body he heads up.
There are issues around charity law with most think tanks claiming charity status and being subsidised by the taxpayer: an irony probably lost on the Taxpayers Alliance. There is a direct correlation between the rise of corporate power and inequality in the UK and US and the emergence of a market of right-wing think tanks jockeying for position and influence and peddling simplistic deregulation and corporatisation as the answer which coincidentally suits their secret funders.
These set-ups have had a disproportionate impact on Conservative Government politics in the past decade savaging the nanny state and regulation and posing a fantasy world of free competitive markets. This is an ideologically dogmatic view which handily reinforces the financial self-interest of the businesses who underwrite them in a set of incestuous, questionable relationships they all prefer to keep from public eyes.
Policy Exchange was the venue for Matt Hancocks recent announcement of the abolition of Public Health England (a stance long advocated by the think tank). Its replacement by a new body the National Institute for Health Protection which will be centralised and corporate-business friendly and led by the hapless, but loved by the Tory Governments Baroness Dido Harding.
There is the shameless dispersal of public contracts and monies during the pandemic to outsourcers such as Serco and Deloitte and a host of significant awards to entities with Tory and Brexit connections. These all involve multi-million-pound deals with no scrutiny or accountability and shrouded in secrecy, due to the catch-all defence by UK ministers of corporate confidentiality.
One symbol in the decline of public standards and rise of systemic corruption is the House of Lords: now the second biggest legislature in the world, only beaten in size and patronage by China. The debasement of the Lords a place once dominated by hereditary peers went into hyperdrive with the creation of life peers appointed by the sitting PM, which has made it even more grotesque and an affront to democratic norms. It is a place that failed politicians turned out by voters are recycled and achieve an afterlife as legislators Tories and former secretaries of state Michael Forsyth and Zac Goldsmith, LibDem Lynne Featherstone and Scottish Labours Katy Clark being examples.
BORIS Johnsons recent list of peers included family and friends. The additions of Claire Fox (former Revol-utionary Com-munist Party-turned-Brexiteer) and Ruth Davidson (who will take up her seat next year), was just another milestone in its decline into farce and national disgrace. And this list was not as bad as it could have been, with several Tory donors knocked off the list by the appointments committee.
Tony Benn calculated that the seven PMs pre-Thatcher Clement Attlee to Jim Callaghan saw the creation of 639 peers: 19 per year. Thatcher presided over 216 peers (18 per year) before it exploded under Blair to 386 (38 per year). Figures from the House of Lords show that in the 50 years since life peers were created in 1958, 1242 peers were created (24 per year).
These figures illustrate the acceleration of patronage into the Lords which has been used to create a substitute political class which takes us to Boris Johnsons list that will unfortunately not be the last word in how low standards can go.
This is the British state which is playing hardball on a future indyref saying that it isnt democratic or responsible to have another vote. It underlines that the UK has no proper processes for deciding on referendums and how they are held; the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (which created the Electoral Commission) being long out of date and from an analogue pre-digital era of politics. Witness the shambles and political chicanery of the Brexit vote and yet the UK governing class think they can still lecture others.
Just as the UK has to stop comparing its democracy with the US and having a false sense of complacency, so Scotland has to stop comparing itself with the state of the UK and feeling that everything is above board.
Scotland does not have the debasement of political and public culture seen around Westminster but it has practices which are cause for alarm. For example, one way by which corporates, business interests and insiders exert influence is via lobbying government.
Our regulatory system is not as robust and transparent as it could be according to Willie Sullivan, head of Electoral Reform Society Scotland, with it having a nod to the principle that we should know who, when and why rich and powerful interests seek to influence public policy and legislation in their favour, with a statutory public register of lobbying. But critically it allows for all kinds of exemptions and ways round the legislation, he says: It excludes emails, phone calls, Zoom (unless the camera is on) and any meetings where the lobbyist has been invited in by the politician.
The Lobbying Register Act is currently being reviewed by Parliament, something Sullivan welcomes, but there has to be wholesale change in how we see such vested interests work, observing: Trust in our institutions is a basis of democracy and if we cant see who is influencing public policy then trust is difficult.
DEMOCRACY is under attack the world over, including in countries which pride themselves on their democratic principles and traditions, such as the UK and US. Donald Trump is threatening to run a horse and cart through the US presidential election and do literally anything, including inciting violence, to remain in the White House.
In the UK no parliamentary inquiry was held into the abuses of the Brexit vote, while the scale of dodgy Russian oligarch monies at the top of politics and the Tories is a national scandal which should shame the governing party but which until now they have been able to minimise, delaying and then burying the report on Russian interference into UK politics.
There is urgent need for reform of UK democracy. It wont come from the Tories who gain from the current rotten ancien regime.
Labour and the LibDems have shown consistently the inadequacy of their reform credentials. Indeed, the Tories want to make the system even less fair with talk of abolishing the Electoral Commission and curbing judicial review which saw significant victories against government overreach on Brexit and reasserting the absolutism of parliamentary sovereignty. Watch out Scotland and everyone on that.
The UK is not in a healthy state but this is a global contest as campaigner George Monbiot says: Without strong civic institutions, society loses it power. From the point of view of global capital, thats mission accomplished.
After a week when Apples market value passed that of the entire FTSE 100 at $2.3 trillion there is an international struggle between the forces of an increasingly unapologetic monopoly capitalism and the forces of democracy who have to restate the case for markets and corporations being held legally and ethically accountable.
The British state wants all of us to feel powerless and helpless in the face of the corporate leviathan. But the first act of resistance is recognising the collective power we have which the elites fear. We have tamed irresponsible capitalism before and can do again. To do so we need to recognise the widespread threat to democracy and act to renew it.
Continued here:
The British state has been debased so why is it still lecturing Scotland? - The National
- The Pro-Slavery Lobby: The Abolition of Slavery Project - December 8th, 2016 [December 8th, 2016]
- Campaign for the Abolition of Terrier Work - Badger Baiting - December 10th, 2016 [December 10th, 2016]
- Trump's Big Lie About 3 Million "Alien Voters" Cuts Far Deeper Than You Think - Truth-Out - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- High time for states to invest in alternatives to migrant detention - ReliefWeb - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Industry calls for better cooperation from TWU on safety for truckies - ABC Online - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Indian Govt's Abolition of FIPB Will Help Spur Up Foreign Investments - Entrepreneur - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Donald Trump 'taking steps to abolish Environmental Protection Agency' - The Guardian - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Indian sex worker groups slam global conference on abolition of ... - Reuters - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Mayoral candidate calls for abolition of Cleveland Police - Hartlepool Mail - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Exploiting black labor after the abolition of slavery - Baraboo News Republic - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Justice Ginsburg Backs Abolition Of The Electoral College - Daily Caller - February 7th, 2017 [February 7th, 2017]
- Mrs. Clinton Is Not the Future - National Review - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- Commissioner hits back at Mayoral candidate's call for abolition of ... - The Northern Echo (registration) - February 8th, 2017 [February 8th, 2017]
- Judicial review is government at work - The Independent Florida Alligator - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- Did Darwin's theories on evolution encourage abolition of slavery? - Washington Post - February 9th, 2017 [February 9th, 2017]
- Italy sets up fast-track asylum courts for migrants - The Local Italy - February 11th, 2017 [February 11th, 2017]
- Pope Francis on death penalty - Philippine Star - February 11th, 2017 [February 11th, 2017]
- The Abolition of Man - Wikipedia - February 12th, 2017 [February 12th, 2017]
- Justice Ginsburg Expresses Concern About Anti-Immigrant Sentiment - Daily Caller - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- Protests as Iowa considers its own 'Scott Walker bill' - Washington Examiner - February 13th, 2017 [February 13th, 2017]
- 'What Is My Future After This?' - Human Rights Watch - February 14th, 2017 [February 14th, 2017]
- Might mandatory retirement come back with 70 as the new 65? - The Globe and Mail - February 15th, 2017 [February 15th, 2017]
- A People's Globalism: Notes Toward a New Left Internationalism - The Nation. - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- County To Apply for Grant for I.V. Community Center | The Daily Nexus - Daily Nexus - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Another Body Blow to the Trump White House as Labor Pick Withdraws - Yahoo News - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- The myth of the alpha leader is destroying our relationshipsat work and at home - Quartz - February 16th, 2017 [February 16th, 2017]
- Equalities Secretary to seek UK assurances over benefits after ... - AOL Money UK - February 18th, 2017 [February 18th, 2017]
- My Turn: Make no mistake President Trump is the enemy - Concord Monitor - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- The redeeming chaos of a bull in the government china shop - Charleston Post Courier - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Govt mulls abolition of parallel degree programs in public varsities ... - Capital FM Kenya (press release) (blog) - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Westminster warned against benefits 'claw back' once 'bedroom tax' abolished in Scotland - Scottish Housing News - February 20th, 2017 [February 20th, 2017]
- Fighting voter ID laws in the courts isn't enough. We need boots on the ground - Los Angeles Times - February 21st, 2017 [February 21st, 2017]
- Manchester's transformation over the past 25 years: why we need a reset of city region policy - EUROPP - European Politics and Policy (blog) - February 22nd, 2017 [February 22nd, 2017]
- UK's 'lower-ranked' universities take non-EU students hit - Times Higher Education (THE) - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Age Action calls on TDs to back Bill abolishing mandatory retirement ... - BreakingNews.ie - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Labor won't fight any Fair Work Commission decision to cut Sunday penalty rates: Bill Shorten - Great Lakes Advocate - February 23rd, 2017 [February 23rd, 2017]
- Molly McGrath: Fight ID laws one voter at a time - Virginian-Pilot - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Jim Goetsch: Abolition of abortions means changing the way we think - The Union of Grass Valley - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- New York dockers' union calls for abolition of crime-busting ... - The Loadstar - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Frederick Douglass Park: We're Fixing Our Typo! - Nashville Scene - February 24th, 2017 [February 24th, 2017]
- Abolishing provincial championships only way to cure fixture ... - Irish Independent - February 25th, 2017 [February 25th, 2017]
- 'Retirement should be an option' - plan to abolish retirement age welcomed - thejournal.ie - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
- Labor won't fight any Fair Work Commission decision to cut Sunday penalty rates: Bill Shorten - Western Advocate - February 27th, 2017 [February 27th, 2017]
- Committee expected to recommend 100m water charges refunds to those who have paid up - Irish Independent - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Sinn Fein attacks schools minister over plan to merge two transfer tests - Belfast Telegraph - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- 'As a lecturer in the 1980s, I kept my sexual orientation to myself' - Times Higher Education (THE) - February 28th, 2017 [February 28th, 2017]
- Dutch Elections: 'Anti-Racist' Party Will Ban 'Black Pete' Traditional Children's Character - Breitbart News - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Molly J. McGrath: Fight ID laws one voter at a time - Herald & Review - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Coveney says he will not legislate for water charges abolition as it would be illegal - thejournal.ie - March 1st, 2017 [March 1st, 2017]
- Taoiseach refuses to back down on water - Newstalk 106-108 fm - March 2nd, 2017 [March 2nd, 2017]
- Crackdown looms for work-related tax deductions - Whitsunday Times - March 3rd, 2017 [March 3rd, 2017]
- We are sick of being told what to do, says Freddie Forsyth - Express.co.uk - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Corruption: Abolish security votes, peg minimum wage at N50,000 Ekweremadu - Vanguard - March 4th, 2017 [March 4th, 2017]
- Religious bodies misguided - Trinidad & Tobago Express - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- *M*A*S*H star speaks out against death penalty - Seacoastonline.com - March 6th, 2017 [March 6th, 2017]
- Immigration under capitalism: Life and death along the US-Mexico border - World Socialist Web Site - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- 'MARCH 4 TRUMP': About 100 demonstrators gather at Kentucky Capitol - Hopkinsville Kentucky New Era - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Abolition Of Work | Prometheism.net - Part 7 - March 7th, 2017 [March 7th, 2017]
- Marc Lamont Hill's one-sided view of racism in the Middle East - Jerusalem Post Israel News (blog) - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- Close-Up: Ava DuVernay - Varsity Online - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- OPINION: Grammar knows best - NW Evening Mail - March 8th, 2017 [March 8th, 2017]
- Women worldwide skip work to protest pay gap, abortion laws and Donald Trump on International Women's Day - Mirror.co.uk - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- Self-employed hit by national insurance hike in budget - The Guardian - March 9th, 2017 [March 9th, 2017]
- How Republicans Might Fudge the Numbers to Make Their Health Care Bill Seem Less Irresponsible - New York Magazine - March 10th, 2017 [March 10th, 2017]
- Who's who in Dutch politics - SBS - March 10th, 2017 [March 10th, 2017]
- Pauline Hanson still a work in progress after all these years - The Australian Financial Review - March 10th, 2017 [March 10th, 2017]
- Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific - World Socialist Web Site - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Junior Culture Minister calls Phagwah Festival of Lights - Demerara Waves - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Tory backbenchers warn over 'death tax' probate fees hike announced in Budget - AOL UK - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- With govt notification, orderly system finally out - Times of India - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- The tax hike for the self-employed isn't actually going to happen - The Independent - March 11th, 2017 [March 11th, 2017]
- Globalization Is Just a Contemporary Word for Financial Colonialism - Truth-Out - March 12th, 2017 [March 12th, 2017]
- Gordon Robinson | Taxed up the ass - Jamaica Gleaner - March 12th, 2017 [March 12th, 2017]
- President Trump needs to score some legislative wins - The Desert Sun - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- The Quietus | Features | Craft/Work | Colouring Out: Queer British Art ... - The Quietus - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- European Parliament vote doesn't mean abolition of visas yet - Poroshenko - Interfax - April 8th, 2017 [April 8th, 2017]
- Why The Tories Are Not My Cuppa - HuffPost UK - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- Why Is Sex Work Not Seen As Work? Part 1 - Feminism in India (blog) - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- NYC college offers Abolition of Whiteness course - My9NJ - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]
- New York public college offering course called 'Abolition of Whiteness' - Fox News - June 6th, 2017 [June 6th, 2017]