The UK is mired in sleaze when it should be standing up for democracy with Biden

Today, President Biden fulfils one of his flagship foreign policy campaign pledges by hosting over 100 countries for an inaugural Summit for Democracy. It’s long overdue for the world’s democracies to work together on pushing back against rising authoritarianism and to better lead by example at home. For the last 15 years, civil liberties have been declining globally, and many countries have been backsliding on democracy, with Britain prominent amongst them.

For the UK, this summit should have been a tailor-made opportunity to join forces with the Biden administration and stand up for democracy and open societies around the world. Instead, we are mired in a seemingly endless cycle of stories about corruption, sleaze and dishonesty at the heart of government. The situation is so worrying that Civicus, the global civil society alliance, placed the UK on its watchlist for the first time in September. The watchlist is made up of countries where civic freedoms are in rapid decline, and currently includes Afghanistan, Belarus and Nicaragua, alongside the UK.

Labour now has an opportunity to be the party that will take seriously the need to rebuild democracy at home, in order to be more resilient to authoritarian threats from overseas. This starts with an honest recognition of the problem.

In President Biden’s inaugural address, he stated clearly: “We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.” He has been open about the huge knock to the reputation of American democracy caused by Donald Trump and the January 6th 2020 insurrection. The tone of today’s summit is humility and mutual learning, rather than hectoring. In contrast, there has been no similar recognition from Boris Johnson that British democracy is on the slide, and that the UK has to strengthen its own democracy in order to lead globally. Keir Starmer’s response to corruption and standards in parliament has been strong, but he has yet to piece together all the elements of British democracy that are in need of repair.

This starts with committing to a cross-Whitehall revamp of the anti-corruption agenda. This should include full accountability for Covid-related spending, from the £6.5bn estimated in fraud from business loans to the £2.8bn and rising estimated costs of unusable PPE – including that purchased via politically connected VIP lanes, which bypassed any proper vetting. Labour should also get behind a revamp to Companies House, so that it has the capacity to clamp down on abuse of anonymous companies used for money laundering, and extend the rules for transparent ownership to real estate, to finally clean up the dirty money that swamps the London property market. Further recommendations are laid out in a recent Foreign Policy Centre report.

Revamping British democracy is not only about cleaning up the current mess. There are democratic innovations that Britain can be proud of and that Labour should champion, such as the work of citizens’ assemblies to give people a voice beyond the ballot box. At the local level, participatory budgeting should also be extended, to help build trust and support for spending in the community on projects that citizens themselves have helped select. Reforming government procurement to keep more value in local communities, and making it open and accessible to small business is also fertile territory.

Ultimately, a British democracy agenda should be about putting power and agency in the hands of people who are too often ignored, and too often feel like they do not have a voice in how government works. Tackling the corruption and elite capture of British politics is just a start. Truly putting communities in control is the genuinely radical democracy agenda that Labour should own as it goes into the next election.

Joe Powell writes in a personal capacity.