The Conservatives are disrespecting the institutions that make Britain great

Whenever travelling abroad, I am always struck by the reaction from those I meet upon finding out I am British. In America, new friends would ask about the Royal family: how many times had I met the Queen, I was asked, with an assumption that we all meet her on an almost weekly basis. I met progressive campaigners during debates about Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act who became starry-eyed discussing our National Health Service. In India, meeting with lawyers during a research project, students asked me about the history of our court system and the independence of court advocates. In Brazil, where I visited for work a few months after Jair Bolsonaro became President, apart from the obsession with their compatriots playing in the Premier League, young lawyers were deeply concerned about the accountability of the executive, the independence of the judiciary and the potential for the politicisation of their military. They would often make unfavourable comparisons to Britain, a country they viewed with great awe for its constitutional propriety.

Everywhere I go, the BBC is mentioned. It is an emblem of ‘global Britain’ – a symbol of our democracy, our openness, and the collective spirit of a nation. As Gary Lineker put it, the BBC is revered, respected and envied around the world, and is something true patriots of our country would be proud of. Public service broadcasting – more challenging than ever, but so desperately required in the age of internet echo chambers and conspiracy theories – is a key tenet of our democracy, culture and social fabric. This week, the government, in its bid to save the ‘big dog’ Prime Minister who has broken his own lockdown rules, announced plans to cut the BBC’s funding. The government has already announced plans to privatise Channel 4, and now has its eyes set on the BBC. 

It is a common theme: the Conservatives demeaning institutions that make Britain great. Boris Johnson has already been found to have lied to the Queen after unlawfully proroguing parliament. Last week, we found out that government advisers – political appointees whose salaries we pay – were drinking and dancing at the height of lockdown on the night before Prince Phillip’s funeral – a period of national mourning. The next day, whilst SpAds nursed their hangovers, images of the Queen, dressed in black, sitting on her own and mourning her husband struck a chord with many at home and abroad struggling with grief during the pandemic. Downing Street has been forced to apologise to Buckingham Palace, a shameful state of affairs that evidences the moral vacuum at the heart of this government. 

Partygate, the Prime Minister’s breaking of lockdown laws and his lies to parliament also undermine the rule of law (as Yvette Cooper powerfully made clear to Priti Patel in the House of Commons this week). This, too, has been undermined by the Conservative Party. These are the politicians who questioned the independence of the judiciary during cases about the constitution and Brexit, who unlawfully prorogued parliament and admitted to breaking the law, if only in a “very specific and limited way”. They have repeatedly been found to have acted unlawfully in relation to procurement, with a strong sense of corrupt activity at the heart of government. If Brazilian colleagues were worried about Bolsanaro, many here share those concerns about Johnson. 

Another proud British tradition is the protection of the right to protest, from the levellers to the suffragettes to those who marched against the Iraq war. This Tory government is now bringing forward a bill that aims to seriously curtail the right to protest. The police and crime bill seeks, for example, to offer sentences for damaging a statue of a slave trader at ten years (the offence of rape starts at five) and to give police powers to tackle non-violent protests that have “a significant disruptive effect on the public or an access to parliament”. There is already an offence, in common law, for ‘public nuisance’, but the proposed statutory provision, as Joshua Rozenberg QC has carefully shown, lowers the hurdle considerably. Damage to property need not be serious, whereby currently it does, and the nuisance can be mere “annoyance” or “inconvenience” for the police to break up the protest. It is difficult to assess an effective form of protest that is not inconvenient to somebody.

The Conservatives are also undermining the institutions that exemplify the best of British. As Keir Starmer said in his speech to the recent Fabian conference, when Labour left office in 2010, waiting lists in our NHS were the shortest on record. The overall mortality rate from cancer had fallen by 22%. Today, NHS waiting lists are the highest since records began (and this was the case before the pandemic). Six million people in England are waiting for consultations and operations. Staff are struggling with a lack of funding and reform. Once again, the Tories come in and waiting lists rise, and it will be for a Labour government to fix. Similarly, in our armed forces, since 2010, the Conservatives have cut £8bn from the defence budget, our full-time armed forces have reduced by nearly 45,000. 

But it gets worse. The government is also tearing apart our Union – the very fabric of our country. Their hard Brexit has caused chaos in Northern Ireland and led to a border across the Irish sea, a concept that Theresa May said no Prime Minister could ever agree to, but Johnson was only so eager to sign before now attempting to backtrack. Last week, we have the bizarre sight of Jacob Rees-Mogg, a despicable man, claiming that the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party is a “lightweight figure”, attempting to casually swat away the concerns about Downing street parties from fellow citizens north of the border. No wonder the nationalists are able to say the Tory government treats the Scottish people “like something on the sole of Westminster’s shoe”.

Ultimately, this government is unpatriotic and disrespectful to institutions that make this country great because they only know and practise the politics of division. In fact, the United Kingdom is a country that thrives when we work together, and that is why so many of our emblems and prominent institutions are built from collective endeavour and experience. The Conservatives cannot grasp that, and therefore fundamentally misunderstand our country.