Privatisation Isn’t Working

(Photo credit: The Times/News Group Newspapers)

 

Privatisation has become the epitome of the neoliberal policy paradigm. It has become synonymous with Thatcherism in the United Kingdom. Successive Conservative, Labour and coalition governments have preserved the consensus on privatisation, since the initial raft of privatisations of the government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

 

Privatisation is when the ownership of a company or industry passes into the hands of private shareholders and private managers. It contrasts with nationalisation, when a company or industry is publicly owned by the state, and mutualisation, when a company or industry is owned by its stakeholders and/or workers. Over the past four decades, privatisation has been applied to the energy industry (most notably British Gas and its “if you see Sid tell him” share sale campaign), the water industry, British Rail, Royal Mail, telecommunications (most notably BT), aviation and the vast majority of building societies. Even services within the NHS have been outsourced to private companies.

 

Not all these examples of privatisation have been a disaster, some have been very successful. The privatisation of telecommunications and aviation have proven to be a roaring success with a truly competitive market able to function to provide genuine choice for customers. However, these examples are more the exception, than the rule.

 

As Britain teeters on the edge of the social catastrophe caused by the huge looming cost of living crisis, senior politicians are starting to question the sanctity of privatised industries. While public support for public ownership is high. In this article, I shall briefly discuss how progressives ought to address the privatisation of energy, the railways and water.

 

Energy

 

No privatised industry is coming into as much scrutiny in contemporary British politics as the privatised energy industry. On 26^th August, the government will set the level of the energy price cap. It is unanimously expected to rise considerably. British consumers have already seen their gas and electricity bills skyrocket, and in the coming months they are due to hit unprecedented levels. Upwards of 10 million British citizens face being pushed into fuel poverty. Britain faces the biggest social crisis since the 1970s and perhaps even the 1930s. While the big energy companies make record profits.

 

How ought politicians to respond to this almighty social crisis on the horizon? The New Economics Foundation supports the introduction of a much higher windfall tax set at 45% of the profits of the oil and gas companies. The Liberal Democrats, and now Labour, have called for October’s energy price cap rise to be scrapped. While the Green Party has called for a super tax to be placed on the “dirty profits” of the big oil and gas companies to pay for the mass insulation of people’s homes. In addition, the Co-operative Party has called for the Household Support Fund to at least be doubled. All of which are great immediate policy solutions. All of which the government should immediately act upon.

 

But what should progressives do in relation to the ownership model of the energy industry? Echoing Gordon Brown’s recent calls, any energy companies which are unable or unwilling to lower energy prices for consumers should be taken into public ownership. Any energy companies taken back into public ownership, should only be returned to the private sector if a truly competitive energy market is able to function. However, if an effective competitive market is not able to function in gas and electricity, and there is reason to suspect this, then the state should reserve the ultimate right to transfer all the privatised energy companies into public ownership. This should follow similar lines to EDF and the French Government.

 

It also must be asked whether the privatised energy companies are capable of meeting Britain’s climate change commitments. As the real-world impacts of climate change are being felt, can Britain rely on an energy sector that is still overly dependent on the high profits that come from fossil fuel emissions? The very emissions that are destroying the environment. Any approach of environmental planning needed to mitigate climate change would struggle to be realised, if carbon hungry energy companies continue to put profits ahead of people and planet.

 

The privatised model of energy provision has had 40 years to prove that it can benefit customers. It has had 30 years to prove that it can go green and radically decarbonise. It has failed on both counts. It is becoming clear that the current privatised energy companies are incompatible with Britain’s net zero commitments. Climate change is already a lived reality for billions of people on planet Earth. We are feeling its effects here in Britain. The day is rapidly coming when the state will have to take urgent interventionist action as the climate emergency becomes a full-blown climate crisis.

 

Given the limited capacity for a genuine competitive market in energy and the increasing urgency with which Britain needs to decarbonise, not to mention the need to lower energy bills, then the nationalisation of the privatised energy companies is likely to be the only viable route to take. Environmental realism, more than socialism, will eventually result in the need for the central state to take control over the national energy supply. In this scenario, even mutualisation would not be sufficient, as the state would have to take radical economic action to address climate change.

 

But even if energy remains privatised for the meantime, we cannot go back to business as usual. The state should strengthen the energy regulators to address any unfair and anti-competitive practices by firms in the energy market, such as price-fixing. The government should also sponsor widespread community owned green energy cooperatives, such as community owned wind turbines and solar panels.

 

Finally, the age of the big oil and gas companies paying zero tax must end. We should implement a radical carbon tax on the part of the profits of the energy companies generated by carbon emissions, with the proper tax infrastructure to ensure that the carbon tax is properly collected. We should seek to emulate Sweden’s approach, which has one of the highest carbon taxes in the world. The money generated should be used to invest in state and community owned renewable energy generation.

 

The Railways

 

The railways have continually been a source of contention ever since they were privatised in the 1990s. The railways are a natural monopoly, with one section of train line franchised out to only one private company at any one time. The tickets for rail users continue to go upwards, as the standard of service on the railways remains highly varied, while the pay packets of railway executives continue to bulge.

 

In truth, the railways are already semi-nationalised. The operating company, Network Rail, which administers the railway infrastructure is already publicly owned. It is essentially just the rail stock itself which is privatised. This is the craziest form of privatisation imaginable. The infrastructure of a natural monopoly is nationalised, while the profits of the railways are leached off by the private sector. The risk has been nationalised, while the reward has been privatised. The privatised railways are structured as a rich rail executive’s charter. This farce has to end.

 

But even in regard to the rail stock, the picture is far from consistent across the whole of the UK. Essentially all of the rail stock for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Greater London and Kent are already publicly owned. Approximately half of the rail services in the North of England are already publicly owned, with a notable portion of the services in the East Midlands also nationalised. In addition, rail freight transportation is publicly owned.

 

The railways should be entirely and permanently nationalised and taken into public ownership. However, we should reject a statist and bureaucratic model of renationalisation. Instead, while the railways should be publicly owned, the running of the railways should be more bottom up, mutual and democratic. Rail users, rail workers and community groups which rely on the railways should have a democratic say over the management of the new British Rail. All the members of British Rail, would be entitled to a periodic dividend as profits are shared in the form of price cuts to tickets. In practice this model would work on a similar basis to that of a consumer cooperative.

 

Therefore, initially the railways should be nationalised and then transferred into mutual ownership, financed by the state. It is reasonable to ask why we should not initially just mutualise the railways right away. The reason is that the railway system is already semi-nationalised. It makes sense to complete the nationalisation first. Also, any new British Rail would require initial central, national coordination in the first instance, which only the state can provide.

Water

As regions of the UK head into drought, as climate change begins to have an impact on Britain’s water supply, it has to be asked whether we can still afford the privatised model of the water industry. Added to this, the water crisis has been compounded by the inefficiency of the water companies as up to a quarter of their water is lost in leaks. While water executives continue to reap huge salary rises.

 

Water is a near absolute natural monopoly. The majority of water users in the UK have just one water supplier. There is absolutely no viable competitive market possible when it comes to the supply of water. There are only so many reservoirs, aquifers and rivers to get water from. Water like all natural resources is limited and finite. Once again, the privatised water industry benefits the private water companies and their executives, while maladministration is rife across the privatised water network.

 

An alternative to the privatised model of the water industry can be seen in the corporate governance model of Welsh Water, the water company that administers almost all of the water supply in Wales. Welsh Water is structured as a mutual company on a non-for-profit basis. The profits that the company makes are reinvested into the maintenance of the Welsh water supply and into lowering the bills of water users.

 

The entire water industry in England should be mutualised along lines similar to that of Welsh Water. The mutualisation of water will lead to lower bills for water customers and a more efficient water service as more profits are reinvested into the maintenance of the water system. Profit sharing and not state management should be the driving feature of a model away from water privatisation. Also, the regional basis of the pre-existing English water suppliers lends itself more to mutualisation than nationalisation. Therefore, regional water non-for-profit mutual companies are more preferable than a state-centric nationalised water industry.

 

Can we still afford privatisation?

 

Privatisation was quite literally sold to the British public on the basis of creating a property-owning democracy of citizen shareholders. In practice however, privatisation has resulted not in the creation of a property-owning democracy, but in the creation of a property-owning aristocracy of wealthy corporate executives and elite shareholders. Private executives and shareholders reap the profits and dividends of the privatisation of the utilities and the railways, while customers have to contend with ever higher prices to use these essential services.

 

Britain’s natural wealth and profit is being squandered away by incompetent managers, corporate executives and distant wealthy shareholders. Imagine if that wealth and profit went straight to the public exchequer in order to ensure a just transition to a green future. Alternatively, imagine if that wealth and profit was shared more fairly by being reinvested into services and into lowering the bills of customers.

 

For too long, privatisation has been a charter for rich executives to plunder Britain’s natural asset-based wealth. This is wealth that should be going to the government and/or being reinvested to improve services and help customers. In energy, the railways and water, a natural competitive free market does not operate. The railways and water are natural monopolies, while an effective competitive market struggles to operate in energy, if it even operates at all. In such scenarios, the public are increasingly squeezed as they are made to pay ever higher prices for unsatisfactory services, as the profits generated are squirrelled away into the pockets of a private elite few.

 

At a time when we are facing an entrenched cost of living crisis, when the NHS and other essential public services are stretched to breaking point, as the price of everyday essentials continue to skyrocket, Britain can no longer afford to lose such essential wealth and profit into the hands of private shareholders. The age of privatisation has to end, and in its place a new age of nationalisation and mutualisation should take its place. The only question is, do Labour and the Liberal Democrats have the courage to propose a radical alternative to privatisation?

(Chart of my alternative energy, railway and water ownership models)

We Need Industrial Harmony Between Bosses and Workers

(This blog article was originally published on the blog of the Social Liberal Forum on 7th July 2022, during the latest rail strike. Please see the link to original article here.)

Recently, Britain witnessed a series of rail strikes across three alternate days leading to six days of disruption on the railways. The railway union, the RMT, have not ruled out a future series of strike action in the weeks to come. The threat of industrial action is not just limited to the railways. Nurses, teachers and barristers are also considering industrial action. Britain may well be on the verge of a summer of discontent.

This is yet another consequence of the cost of living crisis. The squeeze on living standards that is being caused by rising inflation is adding to demands from the trade unions for higher wages for their members. This comes on top of years of stagnant wage growth in the public sector stretching back to the years of austerity in the early 2010s. The cost of living crisis is nothing new, it has been a lived reality for the poorest working class communities for well over a decade. The difference now is that due to rising inflation, this crisis is gathering pace and is starting to impact upon the budgets of middle class families.

All of which has summoned memories of the 1970s. However, it is important to recognise that Britain is not going to experience the level of strife and militancy that was seen in the 1970s. In 1970 alone, 10 million working days were lost due to strike action. Today, the trade union movement is much weaker and with a much smaller membership base than was the case in the 1970s. For any capitalist economy to be fair, it requires an active trade union base. There will come times when trade unions have to collectively bargain and strike to achieve fairer pay and conditions for their members. In fact, part of the reason for the stagnant wage growth in the public sector is due to the weakness of the labour movement, not its strength.

The Conservative Party will nevertheless use this opportunity to resume its historic role as the class warriors fighting for the interests of capital against labour. The Tories have been vociferously anti-trade unionist for decades. Tory ministers will actively use the opportunity of the RMT strike to drive forward their own divisive right-wing politics in an attempt to drive a wedge between the public and the trade unions, while the Labour Party of Keir Starmer seems adrift in the face of the current industrial action, devoid of big ideas and unable to develop a compelling narrative to advance social justice and workers’ rights.

The industrial strife of the past must never return. But equally, we must recognise that the crushing victory of Thatcherism in the 1980s, along with the impact of austerity in the 2010s, has left workers powerless and with stagnant wages. Labour both appears to be unwilling and reluctant to revisit the anti-trade union laws of the past. Besides, even if it was possible to unleash trade union militancy again, this would only play into the hands of the Conservatives. The rise of Thatcherism in the 1970s was helped, in part, by the industrial unrest of the period.

The real radical response to industrial unrest is not to unleash it, but to seek to end it once and for all. Not by having a crushing victory over either capital or labour, but by forging industrial harmony between the two sides of economic life. This is the stance of social liberals. Social liberals neither except the militancy of hard-line socialists, nor the economic hardships of ruthless employers. In the historic class struggle, social liberals sought to build a bridge between bosses and workers. On the one hand, supporting social welfare, public services and rights for workers, while on the other hand valuing the contribution of ethical employers and socially responsible businesses.

Social liberals however, do not think it is sufficient just to guarantee that workers and employers exist and operate within a framework of fairness. What is needed to establish industrial harmony is for power to be shared between capital and labour and for the two to work in tandem with one another. This is epitomised by the social liberal commitment to co-determination. It is not enough just to ensure a fairer firm and a fairer set of labour relations; the whole nature and power structures of the firm and labour relations need to be radically overhauled.

Co-determination is where both workers and bosses would act as partners within the company, firm and workplace. The employees would be able to elect a works council. This would be made entirely of worker representatives and would address matters in the workplace such as, terms of employment, human resources and worker productivity. In the age of the Internet, E-democracy holds out the prospect of workers being able to participate in workplace elections across a large geographical area. Platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams could enable elected members of a works council to convene with each other virtually at opposite ends of a country, or even on the other side of the planet. The capacity for virtual works councils elected via E-democracy, only strengthens the contemporary relevance and necessity for co-determination.

The members of the works council would also in turn be able to elect representatives onto the overarching company board to sit alongside traditional professional managers and senior stakeholders. It is not enough just to have a single tokenistic worker representative on a company board. Social liberals must strive for worker representation on company boards to range from 33% of the board to 50%. Such a model of co-determination as outlined here has proven to be successful in Germany, especially in post-war West Germany. It has led to higher productivity, higher worker satisfaction and personal welfare and greater ethical conduct by the company management. In time, it is also reasonable to assume that co-determination would result in fairer wage rises for workers and less need for industrial action, due to greater levels of engagement between employers and employees.

Co-determination represents a form of industrial or economic democracy. Radical liberals, such as John Stuart Mill, John Dewey and Jo Grimond were committed supporters of expanding democracy into the workplace. The social liberal commitment to co-determination should not be seen as an unpalatable compromise between capital and labour. In reality, it represents the empowerment of workers after decades of neoliberal disempowerment, demoralisation and economic hardships. Workers would be given a democratic voice and have the ability to exercise power within the workplace to the benefit of the workforce and the firm overall.

Strike action is not glorious, it is a reluctant necessary evil for every worker involved. Bulging executive pay packets in an age of food banks is not a sign of economic progress, it is a sign of fundamental hardship, even oppression within the economy. It is the job of social liberals to end all forms of hardship and oppression. It is the job of social liberals to build a new more egalitarian model of capitalism, one built on social justice and co-determination. One which ensures social welfare and public services to the least advantaged members of society, while giving all workers a democratic voice and a degree of power within their workplaces.

The strife and class warring of the past must be rejected. Economic hardship and workplace oppression severely restricts an individual’s freedom and autonomy. The time has come for co-determination. The time has come to truly empower workers in partnership with their management. The time has come to strive for industrial harmony. Let this be the mantra of social liberals in the trying economic times to come.

What is the Point of Starmer’s Labour?

(Photo credit: Sky News)

Britain is facing manifold social and economic crises unlike anything seen in decades. The cost of living crisis fuelled by rising inflation and years of austerity is undermining the living standards of working class and lower middle-class people. Millions are facing fuel poverty in the coming months as energy bills skyrocket. The NHS is struggling to cope and thousands lack access to an NHS dentist. The Bank of England has forecast that the country is heading into recession. Trade unions across multiple sectors of the economy are preparing for strike action as their members face real terms pay cuts in the face of high inflation levels. There is even speculation about the need for blackouts in January. All the while, the government is paralysed as the Conservatives wait to elect their new Prime Minister.

 

The situation facing Britain after 12 years of Tory-led government is truly dire. While Labour’s former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has warned that Britain is facing a “winter of dire poverty” and has called for Parliament to be recalled and for there to be an emergency budget. Brown gave his endorsement (along with several charities, faith groups and organisations) to a report highlighting the impact of the cost of living crisis, and called for the government to “take immediate action to bridge the shortfall [in people’s incomes] and ensure families have enough to live.” His position and the report were endorsed by Labour’s sister party, the Co-operative Party, but curiously the Labour Leadership has (at the time of writing) yet to clearly endorse it, despite it being a leading news story. Even the Liberal Democrats have called for October’s expected rise in the energy price cap to be scrapped.

 

Labour has so far struggled to get a handle on the many social and economic crises and Keir Starmer was forced to U-turn on his initial opposition to allowing Labour frontbenches to join picket lines. Labour under Starmer has yet to consolidate a clear political identity and narrative for itself. It lacks a core mission and its concrete policy proposals have been few and far between. It is lacking the red meat of social democracy, at a time when it is desperately needed. All of this leads to the question as to what is the point of Starmer’s Labour?

 

The instant answer is to replace the Conservatives as the party of government. There can be no doubt that a Keir Starmer led government would be a significant improvement on the current Tory government and the two candidates vying to replace Boris Johnson. I personally hope for a Labour-led government after the next general election, preferably with some form of power-sharing agreement with the Lib Dems and the Greens, along with a commitment to introducing proportional representation. Britain is crying out for a progressive government.

 

But Labour needs to be careful. This is not the 1990s. In fact, politically the 2020s is likely to be much closer to the 1970s, and perhaps even the 1930s. Although Labour can point to the recent success with the Wakefield by-election, it has yet to pull ahead considerably in front of the Conservatives in the opinion polls. Starmer is not polling leads as consistently high as Ed Miliband was a decade ago, let alone Tony Blair in the 1990s. A poll last month found that 43% of Labour supporters did not know what Keir Starmer stood for. This is a problem Labour must address urgently.

 

Labour needs ideas, and radical big ideas at that. Ideas that will enthuse voters. Ideas that Labour has the courage to argue for and campaign for. It was therefore disheartening to see Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, appear to rule out a future Labour government supporting re-nationalisation. This follows Starmer’s previous rejection of universal basic income (UBI) during the pandemic.

 

Labour must not aim to become the last defenders of a failed consensus, bereft of ideas or a viable progressive alternative in the face of an immense crisis. This is what doomed the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald in the late 1920s and early 1930s, as well as the Labour government of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s. In both instances, Labour was annihilated at the following general election and Britain had Conservative or Conservative dominated governments for over a decade.

 

It may sound like a contradiction, but in order to be pragmatic, Starmer’s Labour needs to be radical. There is nothing pragmatic about ruling out potential solutions to the cost of living crisis, something that public ownership or UBI could help to deliver. To rule something out based on pre-existing orthodoxy is the very nature of an ideological position. Labour must keep its policy options open. True pragmatism is not about bland banality, ruthless centrism or compromise for the sake of compromising, it is about proposing solutions to the problems of the day, often in the face of orthodox ideological certainties.

 

To get a flavour of what I mean, consider this quote from the Beveridge Report of the social liberal founder of the welfare state, William Beveridge; “A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching”. This is a statement which is as radical as it is pragmatic. Beveridge was confronted by the giant social evils of the early 1940s, and he and his committee in the Beveridge Report of 1942, proposed a radical new model of social welfare provision in order to address them. Labour (and the Lib Dems) today, require both Beveridge’s radicalism and his willingness to disregard old certainties in the face of a historic social crisis.

 

So, what is the point of Starmer’s Labour? Inevitably, this shall be determined by events, most of which will be out of the Labour Party’s control. In fairness to Starmer, Britain is still more than two years away from a general election. However, it is already clear that the cost of living crisis, along with the many other crises that Britain faces, will be the defining issues in British politics for the foreseeable future. The point of Starmer’s Labour therefore will be to solve these crises.

 

Starmer admittedly has a very difficult political tightrope to walk. But should Starmer win power, he will face the worst inheritance of any incoming government in decades. The same was true when the government of Clement Attlee took power in 1945. In part due to the ideas of the Beveridge Report, Labour was able to establish a post-war welfare consensus which lasted until the late 1970s. Britain once again faces a “revolutionary moment” in its history. Will Labour be intellectually bankrupt and torn apart as it was in the 1930s and 1970s, or will it again summon the courage to envision a “New Jerusalem”, to cast old certainties aside and to slay society’s giant evils, as it did in the 1940s?

 

I very much hope for the sake of our country that it is the latter. I want to see the back of this wretched, corrupt and heartless Conservative government. But even more than that, I want to see someone in power with the courage to propose and enact solutions to the country’s many social and economic crises. It must be the point of Starmer’s Labour to do exactly that.

10 Ways for Progressives to Win Over Red Wall Voters

Since Labour lost a swathe of seats to the Conservatives at the last general election, there has been a lot of discussion about the Red Wall. The Red Wall is those Labour heartland seats in the North of England, the Midlands and North Wales with higher than average levels of deprivation and which mostly voted for Brexit in the 2016 EU Referendum. Progressives of all political outlooks are scrambling to try and win back Red Wall voters lost to the Tories since 2019. Contrary to popular belief, Labour was still the most popular party in the Red Wall at the local elections and a handful of gains were made by both the Lib Dems and the Greens in Red Wall areas. 

So, these are 10 ways for progressives to win over Red Wall voters. These are developed from both my personal insights having lived in the Red Wall seat of Blackpool South for most of my life, as well as the insights of Deborah Mattinson as outlined in her 2020 book, Beyond the Red Wall (see especially pages 234-235).

1. Take Pride in Local Identities

People in the Red Wall are proud of where they come from. They take great pride in their local communities and in their local identities. Pride of place is paramount for people within Red Wall communities. Progressives need to recognise this and embrace local identities. Also, they should not be afraid of progressive patriotism. Who cares if an odd house wants to fly an England Flag or a Union Flag? Most people in the Red Wall, do not want national flags to be shoved down their throats, but equally they are proud of their communities and their country. Progressives should avoid being dragged into the so-called "flag wars" between the hard left and the Conservatives. Equally, they should avoid the dichotomy of the citizens of nowhere versus citizens of somewhere discourse. Progressives in the Red Wall need to be citizens of everywhere, but proudly rooted in somewhere.

2. Don't be Afraid to Use the C-Word - Class

Progressives today seem too often to be afraid of their own shadows. Nowhere is this more clear than discussions around class. Communities in the Red Wall, like communities in parts of London, face structural class inequalities. Progressives need to proudly champion working class people and lower middle class people in the Red Wall. They should seek to address the inequalities of wealth and status which fuel class inequalities and be prepared to take on the vested class interests of the wealthiest in society. Class matters and structural classism has no place in a progressive society. Embrace class identities and give a voice to injustice.

3. Denounce the Injustices of Contemporary Capitalism

That brings me to the third point, that being to denounce the injustices of contemporary capitalism. Call it neoliberalism or Thatcherism, but contemporary capitalism is at the root of the injustices which Red Wall communities face. From insecure employment, to welfare cuts, to rent seeking destroying high streets, to the loss of public services, to food poverty and low wages; these injustices continue to blight Red Wall areas. They have only been amplified in recent years by austerity and the pandemic. Progressives need to call out these injustices and develop the radical policies necessary to remedy them. Progressives need to end social injustices, but first they must never tire of denouncing them as fundamentally immoral at every opportunity.

4. Address Regional Inequalities

There are structural regional inequalities of wealth and power which pervade the United Kingdom. Nowhere is this more true than in the Red Wall. Regional inequalities, like austerity, were a root cause of many people in the Red Wall voting for Brexit in 2016. Progressives need to support the radical redistribution of wealth and power to all regions of the UK. This means supporting either a regional Green New Deal or a Regional Investment Bank. The aim would be to funnel infrastructure spending to the most deprived parts of the country and with it create tens of thousands of well-paid jobs and much needed growth and development for left-behind communities. There also needs to be a structure of federalism and decentralisation to bring political power closer to the poorest communities and regions.

5. Give NHS Staff a 15% Pay Rise

While cynicism is rife in contemporary politics, there is one institution which the vast majority of the public still have faith in. That is the National Health Service. Especially following the pandemic, people recognise the great sacrifices which doctors, nurses and other NHS staff have had to make over the last 18 months. Solidarity and community are at the core of Red Wall ethics. Progressives must take this energy and champion a just pay rise for all NHS staff. This means promising to give all NHS staff a 15% pay rise. This is the debt of thanks which we owe to all those NHS workers who have been making incredible sacrifices not only to fight the pandemic but to keep everyone else safe. We owe it to them and the vast majority of people in the Red Wall would support it and be proud of it.

6. Champion Racial Justice via the England Team

Many cultural conservatives argue that communities in the Red Wall do not care about racial injustice. Actually, they care a lot about injustice, but never underestimate the importance of building bridges. That is exactly what the England team did in the Euros last month when before every game they took a knee in solidarity with the victims of racism. They spoke volumes to people across the country and believe me when I say that most people in the Red Wall would have been appalled at the racism of a small minority of England fans. Players such as Marcus Rashford and their actions both on and off the pitch has shown the importance of racial justice to millions of people across the country. Build bridges and champion racial justice.

7. Don't be Afraid to be Green

Green issues are often branded as "woke" by the cultural right. However, polling and election data evidence has shown a different picture of the Red Wall entirely. The vast majority of Red Wall residents support action to address climate change and believe that climate change is man-made. There is a growing environmental consciousness in the Red Wall and it is vital therefore that progressives develop it and champion green causes. After all, it is working class communities, such as those in the Red Wall, which will be facing the brunt of man-made climate change. There can be no social justice for the poor or the working class without climate justice.

8. Be Anti-Establishment

Don't underestimate the dissatisfaction which exists across the Red Wall towards Westminster establishment politics. This anti-establishment zeal fuelled Brexit. But there is absolutely no reason why a party on the progressive left could not harness the same anti-establishment energy. One clear way to do this is by denouncing the corruption which is present in the current British political system. Nowhere is this more clear than with the House of Lords. An anti-establishment campaign to reform and democratise the House of Lords has the potential to get great traction in the Red Wall, if progressives have the courage to rediscover their anti-establishment convictions.

9. Be Honest

As Deborah Mattinson points out in Beyond the Red Wall, people in the Red Wall appreciate honesty from politicians. What they don't like is deflection and lies. If a party is proposing a big spending policy, it is not unreasonable to explain to people how that would be paid for. Also, people would respect a politician for being honest and truthful and for discussing difficult issues, even if they may not be particularly popular issues, rather than presenting a false image or trying to deflect and gaslight voters. Honesty, trust and political reputation matters to people in the Red Wall. Beyond everything else, honesty may be the best policy.

10. Don't Believe the Lazy Cultural Conservative Stereotypes

Finally, progressives should avoid the lazy cultural conservative stereotypes which right-wing populists like to advance about Red Wall areas. Yes, the majority of the Red Wall proudly voted for Brexit, but on a range of other cultural issues, the Red Wall are no more conservative than the national average. As YouGov reported in May, "the Red Wall is no more socially conservative than Britain as a whole, and characterisation of voters in these areas as predominantly "small c" conservatives concerned about social liberalisation or culture wars is not supported by polling evidence." All the cultural conservative stereotype does is to reinforce the Tory narrative, which is largely fictitious and which undermines progressive parties. There is a growing body of young Red Wall voters who are anything but conservative. Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens must not buy into the Tory Red Wall narrative and to do so would undermine the progressive cause. You cannot out-conservative the Conservatives and most of the Red Wall would not want progressives to try and do that either.

There can be no Progressive Future without Proportional Representation

The United Kingdom is not a true democracy. While everyone over the age of 18 may have the right to vote, those votes are not of equal weight. They also only apply to the lower house of Parliament, the House of Commons. The House of Lords has not seen a single national election in its 700 year history. Alongside the necessity to deliver social justice and end the climate crisis, progressives have another great challenge, to build a British liberal democracy worthy of the name.

 

If you do not vote for the party that wins in your local constituency at a general election, your vote has had no impact on the final result. This means that the vote of people in marginal constituencies (assuming they vote for the parties which are in contention for the seat) carry a much larger electoral weight, than the votes of people in safe seats. Under the First Past The Post voting system, smaller parties, such as the Green Party and the Liberal Democrats are structurally disadvantaged under the system. Whereas establishment parties, such as the Conservatives, Labour and in Scotland, the Scottish National Party, hold a structural political advantage. This means that First Past The Post rarely reflects how people actually vote.

 

If we are to build a progressive country, we need to challenge the political establishment that allows for a corrupt voting system which effectively disenfranchises millions of people. This is a sham of democracy. It also undermines any potential for building a strong progressive consensus. First Past The Post leads to institutional conservatism as the parties which best preserve the status quo can cement their positions as parties of government, while smaller parties are unjustly denied fair representation. It also leads to tribalism between competing parties, petty point-scoring and ideological factionalism within parties. A system of Proportional Representation (PR) on the other hand would lead to the development of a more collegial, consensus-based politics.

 

The two best models of Proportional Representation are the Single Transferable Vote (STV) and the Additional Member System (AMS). STV is a form of Proportional Representation which supports preferential voting (the ranking of preferred candidates on the ballot paper) and would elect MPs in multi-member constituencies. This system is currently used for the devolved and local elections in Northern Ireland. It is used in the Scottish local elections and is used to elect the national Parliament of the Republic of Ireland. AMS is a hybrid voting system which combines First Past The Post constituencies with pure PR party lists. It is currently used to elect the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, as well as the London Assembly. Internationally, it is used to elect the Federal Parliament of Germany.

 

However, there is one significant roadblock which prevents the establishment of a more progressive and democratic society here in the UK. That is the opposition of the Labour Party to Proportional Representation. This position is unhelpful and harms the prospects of forging bonds of solidarity between fellow progressives. It is utterly shameful for the Labour Party to prioritise its own power and privilege above the interests of the people and of democracy. The Green Party and the Liberal Democrats must never tire of denouncing Labour's shameless defence of a voting system which continually facilitates the election of single party majority Tory governments on a minority of the popular vote.

 

Labour is the only social democratic party in the developed world which supports First Past The Post. Labour more often than not, would rather preserve a voting system which benefits them disproportionately and allows for unfettered Tory governments, than support a voting system which would allow for fairer representation for smaller progressive parties. In this respect there is a corrupt bargain between Labour and the Conservatives to deny power and representation to the smaller parties of the progressive left. Labour must realise that the voting system is at the heart of our broken political system and the social injustices it so often creates.

 

How can Labour with an easy conscience support a voting system which almost entirely disenfranchises its own electorate in the rural south of England, let alone the vast majority of Scotland? If Labour is to truly live up to its principles of equality, democracy and solidarity, it must embrace Proportional Representation. Those brave electoral reformers within the Labour Party are the true custodians of Labour's principles today. Most Labour members, 83%, back Proportional Representation. It is time for Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour Leadership to follow suit.

 

The major progressive parties, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Greens need to work together like never before in order to achieve electoral reform. At the very least, the progressive parties must vocally support anti-Tory tactical voting and embrace a common platform which amongst other issues would commit all the progressive parties to introducing Proportional Representation. Electoral pacts between progressive parties in a limited number of marginal Tory constituencies, should also be an option where appropriate.

 

There is a corruption at the heart of British politics. Its name is First Past The Post. Those parties who support this voting system do so against the real wishes of the people. Power and privilege in all its forms must be challenged. The political classes in both the Tories and Labour who continue to support this voting system must be called out for the corrupt sham of democracy which they support. The hypocrisy of so-called progressive Labour politicians who prevent Proportional Representation must be denounced.

 

The Greens, the Liberal Democrats and pro-PR Labour politicians must be in the vanguard of a reforming political movement to bring down the political corruption at the heart of the British establishment and to achieve real democracy. The feudalistic relic which is the House of Lords must be swept away and replaced with a democratic second chamber. The vote must be handed to all 16 and 17 year olds. But above all the life blood of our political institutional inequalities and political injustices, First Past The Post, must be abolished and replaced with a voting system worthy of the name. If you believe in democracy, support real democracy. Support Proportional Representation! Make Votes Matter!

The England Football Team Have Shown Our Tory Establishment For The Plastic Patriots They Truly Are

I think for the first time in my life, I am truly proud to be English. What is even more surprising is that it is football that has inspired this sense of English national pride in me. Like 31 million other people, I watched the England versus Italy game in the Final of Euro 2020 on Sunday. I was very disappointed to see England lose, but I am still very proud of the performance of England's Men's Football Team.

 

It is no secret to say that I am not a huge football fan, to put it mildly. What impressed me the most about this England Team was not just its skill on the pitch or the fact that it had reached its first major football international Final since 1966, but the honour and decency of England, its players and its manager. Gareth Southgate is a model of leadership who could put every senior British politician to shame. He is honest, humble and takes responsibility for his actions. He leads by example and as a result he has the respect and admiration from both players and fans alike. Then there are the players, at the start of every game they have taken a knee in solidarity with black communities and all the victims of racism. The solidarity the Team showed to support Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, following the racist abuse they received following the Final, is an example for everyone to follow. Jordan Henderson during the tournament has been unafraid to act as a proud ally for England's LGBT+ fans, which included him wearing rainbow pride shoe laces during the matches.

 

The England Team of 2021 are true role models who make England proud. They lead by example and are unwavering in their support for oppressed communities. Marcus Rashford, true to his working class roots, managed to persuade the government to continue to fund free school meals during the holidays last year. His campaigning alone has done much to improve the living standards of many of the poorest children in our country. I hope the England Team of 2021 will have inspired millions of boys and girls in England and around the world, regardless of their ethnicity, sexuality or class.

 

The England Team through its actions both on and off the pitch have revealed an England which is both liberal and progressive. It is an England of which I am deeply proud of. Nothing epitomises this more than the showing of public solidarity for Rashford, Sancho and Saka following the racist abuse which they received.

 

A greater contrast could not be drawn between the actions of the England Team and their anti-racist supporters and the current Conservative government. Priti Patel referred to taking the knee as “gesture politics”, which was condemned by Tyrone Mings. Boris Johnson refused to condemn people for booing players for taking the knee. Our right-wing nationalist Tory government has even tried to downplay the impact of racism within contemporary British society. They are attempting to whip up transphobia and deny fundamental rights to transgender people. And they continue to deny social justice to the poorest and most vulnerable people in our country.

 

For so long, this Tory government has been attempting to whip up English nationalism in order to wage its own version of a right-wing culture war. As the historian, David Olusoga has pointed out, the England Team "risk exposing the false dichotomy that underpins the right’s culture war"... the "concerted campaign to present race and class as binary opposites". However, the England Team has revealed a positive, progressive English identity. One which equally challenges the social injustices faced by working class people and the racial injustices faced by black, Asian and other ethnic minority communities. This progressive English identity has always existed, but up until recent days it has lacked the means of expression on the national stage.

 

This has revealed the current Tory political class for the plastic patriots which they are. They do not care for the real England or the real United Kingdom. They turn a blind eye to racial injustice, they undermine the rights of trans people and they try and pit pro-European communities against Brexit communities. They continue to alienate the people of Scotland and seem oblivious to the looming political and diplomatic crisis on the island of Ireland over the Northern Irish border.

 

“Red Wall” areas (those constituencies in the North of England and the Midlands, with large levels of deprivation, who have historically voted Labour) are often lazily stereotyped as culturally conservative. Polling evidence from YouGov however, has shown that “Red Wall” residents are no more conservative than the average UK population. In fact, on many important issues, they have a slight liberal leaning. The overwhelming majority of “Red Wall” residents support action against climate change and support children being taught about Britain's colonial history, including the impact of the slave trade. Both environmentalism and highlighting the racial injustice of Britain's colonial past are two issues which right-wing nationalists would brand as “woke”. These are issues which despite the lazy conservative stereotype are also important to English “Red Wall” communities.

 

My England is a progressive England, which believes that Black Lives Matter, that transgender people should not be vilified for being who they are, and that poor working class schoolchildren should not be left to starve during a pandemic. Real English and British patriots stand up against injustice. All the union flags in the world cannot disguise the fact that Boris Johnson and his government are no patriots.

Remembering The Real British Empire

The Myth of Empire

Ah Great Britain, this sceptred isle! Britain which once ruled the waves and had a global dominion. Glorious Britannia which brought justice, parliamentary government and “civilisation” to the world. An Empire of benevolence and morality, like a mother to her children offering the light of guidance to her colonies. It built the Indian Railways, secured international trade links and put in place good legal order and effective public administration for its colonies. It nurtured them to the point to which they could become nations in their own right. This is the myth of Empire!

This myth is a justification narrative and discourse backed up by British culture. From the poetry of Rudyard Kipling; to the works of Joseph Conrad; to the 1950s and 1960s films depicting the heroism of Empire; to the documentaries of conservative historians; Britain is depicted as the just civilising imperialist. For decades schoolchildren were taught to think positively about the British Empire. Empire Day was actively observed as an article of patriotism. Rule Britannia was sung with real pride and maps of the world with areas shaded in pink were held in true awe.

This cultural hegemony led to the British people forgetting, or perhaps mis-remembering, their imperial past. In modern times it is sustained by the notion of British exceptionalism. This is the secular nationalist idea that Britain is a natural world beater (or at least ought to be). Britain according to this is a world power with all the bombast and entitlement of a would-be superpower, despite the vast, vast majority of the British Empire no longer existing. Similar to the American ideal of manifest destiny, Britain’s manifest destiny is to shape the world and continue to lead it as a moral power at the diplomatic level. According to this, Britain is exceptional and must be independent from less exceptional international forces with full control over its laws (from the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’), money (as the first truly global capitalist superpower) and borders. Clear traces of British exceptionalism are present in the debates surrounding Brexit.

The Reality of Empire

But what was the real British Empire? The real British Empire was the Empire of racism, exploitation and domination. For over a century and a half, Britain traded and sold Africans to plantation owners in the Caribbean and the Americas, and in return Britain received sugar and tobacco amongst other goods. The transatlantic economy of the 18^th century was based on the physical enslavement of millions of Africans, facilitated by Britain. Profit and greed were the main motivators for both slave traders and imperialists alike. Even after the British slave trade was abolished in 1807, it was not until 1833 that slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire. The end of British slavery resulted in large amounts of compensation being paid to slave-owners for the loss of their “property”, while the slaves themselves were left in a precarious position often leading to poverty and unemployment. They had achieved their freedom from physical bondage, but not their freedom from socio-economic bondage or from institutional racism. The British Empire and the period of the slave trade treated black people as just another commodity to be bought and sold, nothing more than a piece of property to profit from.

What about the jewel in the crown of the Empire, the Indian subcontinent? Britain’s Indian Empire alone accounted for hundreds of millions of people. Benjamin Disraeli famously adorned Queen Victoria with the title of Empress of India. But this was no “civilising mission”. The discourse of bringing civilisation is a highly racist one designed to amplify cultural notions of racial supremacy. The Indian subcontinent has a very rich history and civilisation stretching back for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the British. Starting with the ancient Indus Valley civilisation and the Brahmanism of the period; the life of the Buddha and the emergence of Buddhism; followed by the Mauryan Empire and Ashoka the Great; it witnessed the Hindu revival and the Islamic conquests; finally it saw the magnificent Mughal Empire and Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal.

The relationship of the British East India Company and later the British Raj to the Indian subcontinent was one of economic extraction. Like with the slave trade, Britain’s Indian Empire was a source of profit. The much-lauded Indian Railways were not built for the good of the Indian people, but instead to link cotton fields to British ports, so that cotton could be efficiently shipped back to Britain. The railways were expanded following the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58 to ensure more effective military transport across the subcontinent and to maintain Britain’s grip on it. Up to 3 million people died from the Bengal famine of 1943, while there continues to be a scholarly debate as to whether Britain helped to cause the famine, Britain’s poor response undermined its credibility.

The British Empire was ruled through violence. In 1919, almost 400 people were massacred by British soldiers in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar in India. The actual number could be far higher. During the 1950s, Britain brutally cracked down on the Mau Mau rebels in Kenya as it had done a century earlier in India during the Mutiny of the 1850s. During the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa, Britain invented concentration camps to control the Boer population, which led to terrible human rights abuses. Colonial violence was also seen on the streets of Britain’s American Colonies and Ireland on the road to their eventual independence. Violence was also used on the domestic British population to suppress calls for democracy and political reform at home. The most infamous example of this was at St. Peter’s Field, Manchester in 1819, when 19 people were killed and hundreds injured in what became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

The Legacy of Empire

The British Empire has left behind a bitter legacy of racism, religious sectarianism and homophobia in many of its former colonies. Apartheid in South Africa owed much to the legacy of British colonialism. Britain’s terrible handling of the partition of India and Pakistan led to a million deaths and overlooked legitimate claims for nationhood from countries such as Kashmir, a conflict that continues to this day. The Arab-Israeli Conflict dates from the end of the British mandate in Palestine in 1948. Many countries in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and Oceania continue to have homophobic policies which date from the days of British imperial rule. Britain exported its homophobic policies and its homophobic Anglican religion to many countries with no previous history of state-imposed homophobia.

Today whole swathes of the British population are kept in ignorance of their imperial past by the imperial mythology that serves the British establishment. We look at glorious Georgian and Victorian buildings and monuments in many of our major cities, such as Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, Lancaster, Glasgow and London and fail to ask what paid for them. Some would have been paid for through slavery, others by the exploitation of distant colonists. Britain got rich off the misery of its colonial subjects. Britain’s quasi-feudal establishment gained the power and prestige of global rulers, while the legitimate demands for political citizenship from its lower middle class, working class and female population were actively suppressed. The British Empire was first and foremost a system of domination at home and abroad.

Today, the United Kingdom can rightly claim to be a great country. It is a successful (if imperfect) liberal democracy and minority rights are protected throughout society. However, we cannot overlook the fact that vast inequalities still exist on the basis of race, gender, class, sexuality and disability amongst other social characteristics. We must not overlook the injustices of our past. The British Empire was built on domination, exploitation, slavery, racism, sectarianism, classism, misogyny and homophobia. The British people should be as conscious of their controversial past as the Germans are towards the crimes of the Nazis.

Britain can build a great future, but only with true knowledge of its past. We should aim to rectify the negative legacy of the British Empire where possible. Children and adults should be properly educated about the history of British colonialism. We should free ourselves from any delusions of British exceptionalism. Britain is a great country, but one of many around the world. As a nation, if we can recognise the negative parts of our past, we can come together to build a better, brighter future, one built on liberty (as non-domination), equality and community for all.