Category: politics

I’m sure I am not the only UCU member worried about the steady erosion of democratic rights in the UK.

Voter ID is being introduced for elections in the UK.  This will disenfranchise some voters, including some of the most disadvantaged ones.  In the USA, Republican administrations try to keep potential Democratic voters off the electoral registers through such measures.

The right to demonstrate and protest is increasingly being criminalised in the Public Order Bill.

We are facing even more anti-trade union laws.  The Government is proposing to use a supposed problem about emergency cover to legislate to make it compulsory, threatening trade unionists with the sack if they refuse to work.

What is common to these attacks on democratic rights is the creation of a fictitious problem, to which increasing the powers of the state at the expense of citizens is presented as the remedy.  It is always important to ask the subversive question ‘To what problem is this measure proposed as a remedy?’.

The problems are fictitious.

Many trade unionists have seen in the workplace the ways employers and managers create fictitious problems as a basis for pushing through changes they wanted anyway – often changes to our detriment.

There is no evidence whatsoever for any serious level (or even any minor) level of voter fraud in the UK.  So, the case has not been made for voter ID.

The inconveniences at times from protests and demonstrations are much less than the social problems which would arise from a loss of the right to protest.

There is not a problem about emergency cover being provided by workers in ambulance, health, fire and other emergency services.  It already happens.  The problem is that there is a failure to provide these services in ordinary times because of chronic understaffing and under-investment in public services.

Trade unions must campaign against these attacks on democratic rights.  Trade unions need a free society in which to operate effectively for their members.

UCU Congress 2022 voted in favour of proportional representation for UK elections.  This would be a step forward in democracy in the UK.

One thing that has always impressed me when I meet fellow trade unionists is that many became active in unions out of a strong sense of fairness.  Most reasonable people believe that politicians and public servants should be honest and not corrupt.  Many of us wonder what happened to standards in public life.

In recent years in the UK there has been much to make the public feel uneasy and angry about standards in public life.  During the Covid pandemic and the early stages of lockdown we saw many ordinary people trying hard to keep the rules and protect others, even if it meant enduring long periods of isolation and not seeing family and friends for a long time.  We saw health workers and other essential service workers work heroically to nurse and look after people.  These are the same workers from whom the Tory Government proposes to remove the right to strike.

Then we discovered that some civil servants and government ministers had partied and ignored their own rules.  Underlying this was an attitude that the rules are for other ‘lesser’ people but did not apply to hard-working public servants.  Of course, hard-working health workers were too tired to party.

The Prime Minister was ‘ambushed by a cake’.  There are many people now who have to rely on foodbanks who would love to be ‘ambushed by a cake’.

We found that some people had profiteered from the pandemic, supplying useless PPE to hospitals.

We have the corruption of the annual honours system in which honours go to people who have made substantial donations to the political party which nominates them.

There are questions being raised about the appointment of the Chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, who helped facilitate a loan to Boris Johnson.  The appointment is now under review by the Commissioner of Public Appointments.

The former Chancellor, now Chairman of the Conservative Party, Nadhim Zahawi, is under investigation over his tax affairs.  He reached a settlement with HMRC over unpaid tax, paying around £5 million in total for unpaid taxes plus a penalty.  The Prime Minister has now ordered an investigation.

Many people are wondering where will this all end.  Can we trust anyone in government to be honest and not corrupt?

Concerns over government corruption are surely one of the factors fuelling the current wave of industrial action, in addition to the impossible workloads, chronic understaffing and sharply rising prices.  Is it too much to ask for honesty and good standards in public life?  If benefit claimants or trade unionists exhibited the level of corruption show by some of our rulers, what would happen to us?  It all adds up to the message ‘enough is enough’.