SOLOMON HUGHES reveals how six MPs enjoyed £400-£600 hospitality at Ditchley Park for Google’s ‘AI parliamentary scheme’ — supposedly to develop ‘effective scrutiny’ of artificial intelligence, but actually funded by the increasingly unsavoury tech giant itself
Boris Johnson is a threat to our already-crumbling democracy
We need system-wide answers to the current crisis of democracy in Britain, where the masses are ready to support a demagogue, writes LYNN HENDERSON
Boris Johnson with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick
Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, took part in a conversation with Afua Hirsch at London’s Royal Geographical Society. LYNNE WALSH reports
As the regime in Iran continues to face international pressure to reduce its nuclear programme, workers continue to struggle for wages they can live on despite harsh repression of trade unionists, reports JAMSHID AHMADI
JEAN SILVAN EVANS pays tribute to the social campaigner who sang the Welsh national anthem to Khrushchev in Moscow and became Rhondda’s communist mayor in 1979
As summer nears, TOM HARDY explains how unions are organising heat strikes and cool stations while calling for legal maximum workplace temperatures — because employers currently have no duty to protect workers from dangerous heat
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT
KEITH BARLOW examines the 1975 referendum that saw Britain vote to stay in the EEC, revealing how Tony Benn understood that EU free-market principles and capital movement rules would tie the hands of any government putting people’s interests before corporate profits
YOU don’t have to look far to see that — 200 years since the first big battles for the vote — our democracy is in trouble.
Dissatisfaction with our political system is rife. A recent Hansard study found that over half of people think that what the country needs is a “strong leader who is willing to break the rules.” In the eyes of many of his supporters, Johnson, who has so far in his career shown scant regard for rules, conventions and accountability, is filling that space.
Despite being cut from the same establishment cloth as the wider political elite, he’s pitched himself as the man to take on the “vested interests” and restore faith in democracy by delivering Brexit.
But while the need to restore our faith in democracy is real — just 4 per cent of people feel properly able to influence decisions at Westminster according to polling for the Electoral Reform Society — Johnson’s agenda represents a full-throated assault on our democracy that must be challenged head on.
When Johnson launched his leadership campaign back in June he did so with a press conference that had decidedly Trumpian undertones. It’s not hard to draw parallels between the two men: where Trump uses anger Johnson uses humour to whip up the audience and dodge scrutiny.
He blustered his way through the press conference, dodging topics he didn’t want to engage and deflecting difficult questions. When Sky News’ Beth Rigby attempted to ask a question on concerns about Johnson’s character and his previous Islamophobic remarks comparing veiled Muslim women to “letterboxes,” his assembled supporters booed — to them a legitimate response when presented with uncomfortable facts.
Even in the short time since he arrived in Downing Street Johnson has shown his characteristic disregard for political norms and democratic process.
His appointment of Dominic Cummings as his chief strategist, a man who was previously found in contempt of Parliament for refusing to answer questions from MPs, has attracted much criticism.
This is the same Cummings who was behind news last week that Johnson could defy a vote of no-confidence from MPs and instead refuse to resign as the clock ticks down until a general election is triggered, forcing through an extreme Brexit.
Labour have rightly called this “an abuse of power” and cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill is thought to agree. But under Britain’s uncodified constitution, there appear to be few routes available to properly check his unwarranted power. So what next?
Democracy isn’t static — and the (limited) one we have today was won through struggle and sacrifice. This week marks two hundred years since the Peterloo Massacre, when 60,000 working people gathered in St Peter’s Field in Manchester in support of the campaign for parliamentary reform with the simple demand of political representation.
Historians recognise the tragedy — with 18 being killed by government forces — as a key movement in the history of the suffrage movement. While they did not win at first, it was the beginning of a long process for democratic reform.
It’s clear that this battle is not over. Later this month, campaigners, trade unionists and politicians will unite to set out that vision for “real democracy” at a major conference in Manchester marking the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre.
“This is What Democracy Looks Like” — hosted by the Politics for the Many campaign and backed by PCS and TSSA — will bring hundreds together to argue the struggle for a better democracy must continue today.
Featuring journalists like Paul Mason and Dawn Foster to Jon Trickett MP and Julie Ward MEP, it will gather the democratic left to say: we must not only stop Boris Johnson, and the most extreme British government of our time, but also reform the structures of politics so that they work for the many.
Only by fighting for real democracy today can we celebrate the legacy of those who did so 200 years ago.
In the face of a chaotic constitution, we need system-wide answers to the current crisis, not just manoeuvres behind closed doors. So let’s do what we do best: build a movement for change — one which can’t be ignored.
Book today for ‘This is What Democracy Looks Like’ to guarantee your place: https://politicsforthemany.co.uk.
Lynn Henderson chairs the Politics for the Many campaign and is PCS national officer.
More from this author
With new faces being elected to both to government and to my union, PCS, 2024 has been a year of change – with new challenges ahead for 2025, writes LYNN HENDERSON
In my union PCS, we know from experience that women are the first line of defence during this ongoing period of attacks from the government and employers on our living standards, writes LYNN HENDERSON
PCS senior national officer LYNN HENDERSON explains why the union is growing and taking more industrial action despite the hostility of the current government to workers’ demands
With PCS members themselves facing poverty due to poor pay and the cost-of-living crisis, industrial action was inevitable — it’s time to link up our struggles, writes LYNN HENDERSON
