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The UK House of Parliament seen from the south bank of the River Thames.
George Monbiot
Rings of power that debase democracy
D
o the people of Britain live in a democracy? You may well ask. An unelected adviser seems to exercise more power than the Prime Minister, and appears unanswerable to people or Parliament. The Prime Minister makes reckless public health decisions that could put thousands of lives at risk, apparently to dig himself out of a political hole. Parliament is truncated, as the government arbitrarily decides that MPs can no longer join remotely. As the government blunders from one disaster to the next, there seem to
be no effective ways of holding it to account. Established power in the UK is surrounded by a series of defensive rings. As soon as you begin to name them, you see that the country is a democracy only in the weakest, shallowest, sense. Let’s begin with political funding. Our system permits billionaires and corporations to outspend and outmuscle the electorate. The great majority of money for the Conservative party comes from a small number of very rich people. Just five hedge fund managers have given it £18
million over the past 10 years. The secretive Leader’s Group grants big donors special access to the Prime Minister and his frontbenchers in return for their money. Courting and cultivating rich people to win elections corrupts our politics, replacing democracy with plutocracy. This grossly unfair system is supplemented by outright cheating, such as breaching spending limits and secretly funding mendacious online ads. The Electoral Commission, which is supposed to regulate the system, has deliberately been kept powerless. The maximum fine for winning an election (or a referendum) by fraud is £20,000 per offence. Democracy is cheap in this country. Despite such assistance, the Conservatives still failed to win a majority of votes at the last election. But, thanks to our
ColdType | Mid-June 2020 | www.coldtype.net
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