Covid-19 exposes unavoidable conflicts facing our democracy

Sam Coates, Unlock Democracy

Wikimedia Commons

Under lockdown, now more than ever we need to talk about the conflicting values that run through our democracy.

Is freedom more important than equality? Does mass opinion outweigh expertise? How far are we prepared to coerce people to follow rules for collective benefit in a society that values choice so highly? Questions like these show the complexities and conflicts of democracy usually hidden in a public debate obsessed with Westminster personality and drama.

At the time of writing, it looks like tens of thousands of people will die unnecessarily because of government failures to lock down soon enough, provide enough PPE, or mobilise a testing and tracing effort. At some point we need to move beyond mourning these events and demanding fast action to contain this catastrophe - we need to ask deep questions about the assumptions underpinning the way our society is run when those entrusted to keep us safe - the most fundamental role of government, have failed so comprehensively.

Democracy and economic inequality

One piece of the puzzle is straightforward - too few people have far too much political power. A rigged voting system hands a tiny portion of voters the power to decide which of two tribes of a political class will rule us. In a time of enormous wealth and income inequality, election campaigns are bankrolled by billionaires trying to buy the result they want. The rich, corporate, and other powerful interests either have direct links to the political class through elite social circles, or can buy access to decision makers through lobbyists that operate largely in secret. Meanwhile most of us struggle to have our voices heard at all and as research by the Hansard Society shows, the public know all this is happening[1].

It should be no surprise then, that political decisions overwhelmingly benefit the same people and interests that have this access. Taxes for the richest and corporations have tumbled during a decade where unprecedented cuts to public services have created a social catastrophe of food poverty, homelessness, and mental ill health for the majority. From working, to learning, to receiving care, anyone who relies on the state to support or to protect them has been let down in recent decades, while the powerful who will never rely on this support get ever more freedom and tax breaks from the state.

From shining a light on corporate lobbying, to capping political donations and securing a written constitution that prevents the powerful from exploiting lax checks and balances, Unlock Democracy has always campaigned to shake up the political system to protect the rest of us from distortions by inequalities of wealth and power in society.

In ancient Athens, it was understood that unchecked wealth and power would undermine democracy and lead to oligarchy - which is why they had rigorous safeguards to prevent one family or clan from dominating politics with money and networks[2]. Without major steps to reduce economic inequality, this will be a constant battle between top and bottom, but there are other conflicts that cut horizontally across our society, instead of a battle between top and bottom.

Freedom vs equality

The tension between freedom and equality sits right at the heart of democracy. On the one hand, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are just some of the rights we hold closely. On the other, the UK public holds equality as an important value - whether it’s our cherished NHS, or recent polling[3] showing support for a job guarantee or other rights to basic material security, alongside long established support for higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

But during a drawn-out lockdown, this raises profound questions about our freedoms. Millions of older people, the immunocompromised and those with chronic conditions have been told to shelter in their homes to protect their health.

But thanks to the government’s failure to test and trace Covid-19, we’re facing at least a year where it may not be safe for more vulnerable people to venture out. Should healthy people have the right to go about while those susceptible are stuck inside, losing the camaraderie of everyone going through the same experience? Or should restrictions apply equally to everyone until they can be safely relaxed for everyone?

As we can see, these questions go beyond just restricting everyone’s freedom to guarantee equality of health.

Expertise vs mass opinion

Since Michael Gove’s infamous deriding of experts during the EU referendum, arguments have raged about the place of expert opinion in a democracy and how it should relate to mass opinion. But in the early days of the pandemic’s arrival in the UK this debate took a surprising turn.

While most European democracies hit earlier by the virus embraced strict lockdowns, Johnson’s government claimed their scientific advisers believed a light-touch ‘herd immunity’ approach could work, losing what we know now were precious weeks to contain the spread. The public rightly asked why the science in our own country was so different to the rest of the world, with calls for the radical steps seen elsewhere. In response, many journalists derided people’s concerns, saying we ‘should listen to the science’. Questions remain about whether the government was justifying a political response with cherry-picked science, but in times like these what counts more is an existential question.

The less information we have as ordinary voters, and the less we deliberate about our society, the more vulnerable we are to the powerful buying the outcomes they want, both in government and the results of elections themselves. The status quo is the only winner of an unengaged public.

If we want to reconcile this tension, we need to demand a radical overhaul of the UK’s patchwork of citizenship education in schools, as well as independent citizenship education initiatives for adults that exist in many European countries. Unlock Democracy has been calling for citizens’ assemblies in recent years to build consensus around issues such as Brexit, and the task of reimagining the British constitution itself. Everyone who wants a stronger democracy should be calling for these kinds of tools that give ordinary people the time, the space, and the power to explore complex decisions in the detail they deserve.

To defend the future, let’s talk about democracy

With so little debate about the meaning of what’s happening for the long term health of our society and democracy, it’s crucial that we all ask these questions. The more of us that engage in these ideas of what democracy actually means, the better a position we’ll be in when lockdown ends to build a new democratic settlement that learns from the mistakes already made, and is up to tackling the existential challenges, like the climate crisis ahead of us.

Thanks for reading! There’s only been space to skim over a couple of these conflicts. If you want to explore all of these questions together - sign up to our mailing list to hear about our upcoming study-group webinars. We’ll be doing some deep thinking about how democracy should look as an ideal, how the status quo shapes up against it, and how we begin to campaign for the changes we need.

This piece was inspired by Democracy may not exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone by Astra Taylor.