Alternative Editorial: Competing Betrayals

Big Ben shrouded in scaffolding witnesses the 1 million people marching in London.

Big Ben shrouded in scaffolding witnesses the 1 million people marching in London.

For those taking part in the movement of movements for change – you know who you are – it’s been a heavy week. There seemed to be so many signs that we might not be winning the battle to move our world into a more human, connected, fair future.

In particular, there have been multiple incidents of betrayal of the people. Where people pushed their democracy to the agreed limits, but those limits were then changed. 

In London, Extinction Rebellion was shut down by the police. Yes the rebels disrupted the traffic and were prepared to be arrested for that. That’s agreed. But now it’s no longer lawful for two people who want to save the planet to stand together anywhere in the public space. If you think this is a joke, go read the news. How can peaceful mobilising against the possibility of Extinction be made illegal in this modern capital? 

In Barcelona, several members of the government and other activists representing the Independence movement were given long jail sentences after being charged with sedition. Their crime was to fulfil the promise on which they had been elected: to hold a referendum and then begin the process associated with the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). The former Catalan President, also an Independent, would immediately be arrested if he returned to his homeland from voluntary exile.

In Syria, after years of relying on the Kurds to contain Isis and giving them a safe haven in return, Donald Trump’s unilaterally decided to withdraw American troops. This left Rojava - an incubator for a new kind of democracy in the heart of the war zone – suddenly exposed to invasion by Turkish troops. Here is a paragraph from a report in the New Internationalist by Ruhila Gupta, that might convey the significance of this: 

[Rojava’s] organizing principle is democratic confederalism: a system of direct democracy, ecological sustainability and ethnic inclusivity, where women have veto powers on new legislation and share all institutional positions with men. 

Within the short time since forming Rojava’s democratic experiment, child marriage, forced marriage, dowry and polygamy were banned; honour killings, violence and discrimination against women were criminalized. It is the only part of Syria where sharia councils have been abolished and religion has been consigned to the private sphere. 

This is a blueprint for the kind of society that many of us have been campaigning for all our lives—and yet, until now, it is the best kept secret in the world.

The sense of outrage and betrayal felt by supporters all over the world is felt even in the heart of the Republican Party in Washington.

Britain’s Brexit dilemma sharpened too. In what has increasingly become a play-book of predictable moves, Boris Johnson won a deal from the European Union in time for the deadline on October 19th. Predictable because it was no secret that Johnson’s scare-mongering around the possibility of a No-Deal would cause everyone to scramble to avoid blame for that outcome. Even the EU cannot afford to wear that hat.

Placards try to get a more complex case across

Placards try to get a more complex case across

Some will say this deal is good news, others not but for a wide variety of reasons which we’ve explored here before. The betrayal that the Leave voters are experiencing, is now being seen alongside the betrayal the people of Northern Ireland are fearing, as almost any meaningful deal threatens the Peace Agreement. That David Cameron and the government of his day never saw this danger clearly when they called the original vote, is one of the key reasons for the impasse Britain faces.

The spectacle of a Parliament unable to process its own collective error is now being played out before us. In the midst of that PM Boris Johnson himself is championing a kind of politics that incites division with glee. Despite the undisputed evidence that half the country is for and half the country is against us leaving the EU, there is no language of shared interest anywhere to be heard. Instead, in the very name of the people, he pits one side against the other as if they were enemies, using the words ‘do or die’ to express his commitment to one side. 

To deepen the wound, Johnson is building an election campaign that would describe the whole of Parliament as being against “the people”. Again, that might sound laughable: after all, he is Prime Minister only because he is also an MP, an elected representative of his constituency, like everyone else in the House of Commons. This message literally scrambles the brain, leaving the majority of politicians unable to defend their own attempts to represent their own constituencies. But maybe that’s the point.

A super-ironic reference to the musical Hamilton

A super-ironic reference to the musical Hamilton

What can he hope to achieve with the demotion of Parliament? Only personal power. After the first attempt to get his new deal across the line was scuppered by Parliament on Saturday, Johnson was obliged, by law, to send a letter to the EU requesting a delay to the UK leaving. The BBC reported: “the PM rang European leaders, including Mr Tusk, to insist that the letter "is Parliament's letter, not my letter" - an invitation to the EU to choose the man above the entire democratic system. His actions put him at risk of prison.

Anyone who has watched Johnson’s career would know that he is not afraid of taking these kinds of risks. Possibly because he has nothing to lose – if he fails as a politician, he has enough money and innumerable other options for an enjoyable life. It’s possibly because he cannot see the danger in trashing Parliamentary authority, which would see the break-up of the Union as its first casualty. And a sharply increased exposure of vulnerable people to a de-regulated public sphere as its second. 

While Johnson would only ride this storm with gusto, inviting praise for his derring-do, the UK would find its society in free-fall, without a safety net. We would become the rogue state no-one wants as a neighbour: drawing trade and investment from all over the world because of our lower (and undercutting) levels of environmental or tax restrictions. 

Yet there is a direct consequence of Johnson’s politics – and maybe the other acts of betrayal mentioned above - that may or may not be intended. More people are rising up to object. Witness the million people in Parliament Square today demanding, not to Remain in the EU, but to have the right to hold a second referendum. To have another say.

After three years in which Parliament has simply been unable to deliver on a referendum that so confused Westminster that it has almost imploded, the protestors’ demand seems reasonable. So much has been revealed and better understood about the implications of the referendum over those years that, maybe, we should ask again. 

Of course, the danger is that the outcome would not improve the divide. For example, even a switch to 52% for Remain would change very little in the task of bringing the country together. Is there a better response available? For example, would a Citizens Assembly, maybe taking place in the House of Lords, do a better job to placate the polity as a whole?

A similar call from Extinction Rebellion, for example, has opened up many new discussions on what an improved democracy could look like. On our Future Democracy Hub talk-space, hosted by Loomio, there are no simple answers. Yet the call for more participation by citizens and the importance of patient deliberation is consistent. 

There is a new and growing political will coming from citizens all over the world, which is taking a variety of forms. While the mainstream news often focuses on the violence, the 500,000-strong protest on the streets of Barcelona were intentionally peaceful and accompanied by a general strike of workers. In Hong Kong, similar protests against an overly oppressive action from the government have continued every weekend for several months now, becoming increasingly inventive in the way it operates.

Extinction Rebellion have been remarkable, not just for the swift and effective disruption of London life, but for the complex messages their behaviour has transmitted. The willingness of people from every age group and profession to be arrested – often after being chained or glued to unmovable objects – creates a spectacle of self-sacrifice rarely seen in such huge numbers. 

The Red Brigade performances offers a moving, beautiful image of grief that pierces the trance of our monotonous, consumerist lives. The instant return of everyone to the streets to hold a massive People’s Assembly in the heart of London, in direct defiance of the police ban, was as hopeful an event as any we’re likely to participate in this year.

All the while, in another part of the country at the same time, A/UK was participating in the writing of a bid for the funding of a new city-wide food project (fingers crossed) Initiated by tens of small food businesses - mostly social enterprises – they were originally connected by a civil society network committed to social transformation. 

In some ways, this is another front for the new democracy. They are non-state actorsworking together in a community to respond to the environmental crisis—when the national government cannot. The local council can be a partner, but not the leader. There is plenty of evidence that we are living in a new age of activism of all kinds – which must surely imply a new idea of democracy too.

So where does that leave Westminster? While out marching, it was interesting to look up at Big Ben today – the iconic landmark towering over the Houses of Commons and Lords. It’s currently swathed in a robust cover of scaffolding and tarpaulins, while vital refurbishment work takes place. It actually looks like a huge chrysalis – the protective shell that surrounds a caterpillar as it turns slowly into a butterfly. 

We can only hope that as the unrest continues, our Parliament is also preparing itself to transform into something far more beautiful – more suited to this new age of people power.

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