Not your father's world

This is a post which I considered very carefully before deciding to publish. I certainly do not “do” conspiracy theories – they have often struck me as the paranoid delusions of people who cannot accept that the world works differently to how they would like. I struggle with the idea that the world is run by a secret cabal of men (for that is how they are normally portrayed in James Bond films) sitting in some glamorous location making decisions which affect the lives of the little people. Nor do I buy the idea that the likes of the Bilderberg Group are trying to subvert the democratic process in the western world. But I was recently brought up short by a couple of articles by people who I have long regarded as sane commentators. 

The first was by George Monbiot, an environmentalist and political activist. I have to confess that I have not always been a fan of his work, believing for many years that he hugely exaggerated his stance on many positions. But I was impressed with his intellectual honesty in reversing his position on nuclear power and I now take him much more seriously, even if I don’t always agree with what he writes. However, the article, published in The Guardian (here) took a cogent look at how so-called "dark money" – used to fund organisations involved in political advocacy without disclosing where it comes from – has a huge impact on the way in which government policy is shaped.

In particular, he focused on the activities of one Dr Liam Fox MP, who is a prominent supporter of Brexit and currently Secretary of State for International Trade. In 1997, Fox founded Atlantic Bridge, described as an educational organisation designed "to bring people together who have common interests [and] ... defend these interests from European integrationists who would like to pull Britain away from its relationship with the United States.” In 2007, a sister organisation was set up in the US with affiliations to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), described by Monbiot as "perhaps the most controversial corporate-funded thinktank in the US" and which has extremely close ties to the Trump administration (see Monbiot’s article for the detail). After registering as a charity in 2003, the UK arm of Atlantic Bridge was dissolved in 2011 after the Charity Commission concluded that it was "not evident that [it] had advanced education" and "may lead members of the public to call into question its independence from party politics.”

Monbiot convincingly makes the case that Fox has consistently blurred the lines between the public interest and his own personal interests. However, by being tasked with the job of securing trade deals with other countries, Fox is ideally placed to lead the way in securing a UK trade deal with the US.  But as has been pointed out numerous times before, any trade deal will be on terms which put US interests ahead of those of Britain. As Monbiot put it, “European laws protecting the public interest were portrayed by Conservative Eurosceptics as intolerable intrusions on corporate freedom. Taking back control from Europe means closer integration with the US. The transatlantic special relationship is a special relationship between political and corporate power. That power is cemented by the networks Liam Fox helped to develop.”

You may or may not agree with this view, but whilst it is plausible, Monbiot has “form” and we know where he stands on the political spectrum. But the blog post by Tony Yates, professor of economics at Birmingham University and which made some similar points, comes from someone who in my experience does not consistently advocate a particular political stance (here) Yates points out that many of the grievances which led to the Brexit result "have been stoked and crafted ruthlessly. The vortex is stoked and our descent into it is piloted in the name of the ‘will of the people’.  But in fact the journey is in the service of the populist-controllers who have managed to sell the people the bad policies.  What do they get out of it?  Publicity, gratification, media careers, control over policies that affect the net worth of companies they and their associates are connected with."

Precisely because I regard Yates as a rational commentator is the reason why his argument hits with such force. Regular readers will know that I have consistently questioned how the policies of Trump – or the UK government with regard to Brexit – serve the economic interests of their respective electorates. If both the US and UK governments are pursuing policies designed to benefit a small group of individuals, we are in more trouble than I thought. I will leave it to the political scientists to assess the impact on the democratic process. More worrying from an economic perspective is that the international institutions upon which our security and prosperity have been built for 70 years are under threat. I have noted previously (here) that the parallels with the 1930s are more worrying than people care to admit, and historians will tell you that despots come to power riding a wave of popular support to impose policies which impoverish their countries. Whilst Trump may not be a despot, and Theresa May is certainly not, they both lead governments whose policies are economically harmful. 

Perhaps we are all being a little bit jumpy in the wake of the political upheavals of the last year and wiser heads will soon prevail, such that by the end of the year we will all wonder what the fuss was about. Or maybe, as Yates wrote, the failures of current policies "can be sold as a success, whose ill effects are blamed on simply not punishing the imaginary villains enough.  And the next round follows." This is not my father’s world. It’s my grandfather’s.