Watching tens of thousands of people march on Westminster waving the flag of St George and throwing bottles at the police this month sickened many of us to our core. Yet, amongst those dead set on racism and violence, were people mourning for a time when it felt like there was some spare change in the pocket, when you could see a GP when you were ill and when education was free. 

Why do so many feel they have lost something and who really, is the enemy?

If you listen to the Elon Musks and Nigel Farages of this world, what has changed is that too many people have moved to the UK and taken places at the front of the queue for healthcare and jobs.  But the facts simply DO NOT back this up.

The reality is that UK communities have indeed been ‘hollowed out’ – but not by immigration. Instead, by the very people now drumming up the discord. By those who pop up on massive screens and shake the hands of royalty at palaces.

From the 80s onwards ‘the market’ became the arbiter of society’s purpose –  and growth the only measure of progress.  In that time everything people held dear has been commodified and sold off. Ownership of everything – from natural resources, to factories, to technology, to media to our public services – has all been taken by the same few corporate hands. Local libraries, leisure services, even the care of our most vulnerable children and older people – has been sold off to private equity and global businesses. 

This loss, caused by the EXTRACTIVE nature of our economy is visible in every city, town and village.  From care homes to water companies, from buses to community buildings, from energy to education, what  once belonged to ‘the people’’ is now sold back to us at unaffordable prices for the benefit of billionaires who are unaccountable and, it seems, untaxable.   

We live in a country where wealth has been extracted at an extraordinary scale. The rich have become exponentially richer – the top 1 per cent have increased their wealth by £33.9trn in real terms, in the past 10 years.  

As the think tank Common Wealth has recently reported, in its new report: ‘Who Owns Britain?’, the UK public has paid over £200 billion directly to the bosses and shareholders of our public services (that those same citizens previously owned and had a say over).  Where the basics of life: secure work, housing, health and quality education, have been bought up by the few and placed out of reach for a growing number of, as what  politicians like to call:, ‘ordinary working class people’ 

And with money comes power.  As wealth has been extracted from the many to the few so too has our ability to influence our own lives, our choices, our futures.  A democracy depends on a free press, on quality education for all and tiers of government who we can hold to account.  This growing concentration of wealth means those same people control our media, our favourite sports, our public services, our education providers and yes, our politics.  Fear of the response of the ‘markets’ (ie how the rich feel and respond), leads to governing not ‘for the people’ but ‘for the powerful’.

When local communities feel impoverished, disconnected and powerless they take to the streets.  The tragedy today is that they are doing so in protest, not at the mega rich who are extracting their money and power – but at those with the least money or power of all – those fleeing war and persecution elsewhere (both usually caused by the same wealth extractive economic model and powerful elites).

The irony of the richest men in the world being the very people standing at the front of those marches, encouraging those that they themselves have impoverished and disempowered, to ‘stand up’ to the system is sickening.

So what can be done – or is this an inexorable decline into authoritarianism and fascism?

The answer luckily is a lot, it’s not rocket science and it is already happening up and down the UK and beyond.

The answer is to turn extraction into regeneration – to turn division into connection and anger into power over our own futures.  We urgently need to focus our economy – and by that I mean the money, skills and time we and our governments spend – on the things that matter to us – food, housing, healthcare, education, care, transport, clean air, culture, sport, the local community centre or local café and business.

We also need to question others who want to invest in us to make sure it’s a win-win for communities across the UK. Look at the news of the American deal following Trump’s visit – £90bn of this £150bn ‘investment into the UK’ will go to just one private equity investment firm, Blackstone. 

It’s time for every local and regional government to re-calibrate its own compass. Time to move away from the mindset and policies that led to the scandalous extraction of wealth from communities.  The blind obsession with ‘inward investment’ by massive global corporations that then in turn provide insecure, poorly paid work and obscene pay and profit for shareholders in tax havens. 

They can prioritise their existing spending on care homes and energy suppliers away from ones owned by faceless billionaires in Dubai, and instead towards those owned and run by local social enterprises and community based businesses who are truly invested in delivering better services to us all. 

They can re-write their ‘growth plans’ to ensure every pound spent and every department focused and every community supported and mobilised, to grow what matters to the lives of those they serve – local jobs, homes, connection and opportunity for all.

CTP’s team work every day with these pioneers – helping them re-wire and re-shape local economies and showing national and global governments how the system could and should work – for people and the planet here today.

When people’s lives are filled with the things we all need to thrive, and they feel connected to opportunities and the decision making systems around, they don’t take to the streets in protest and they don’t look for easy scapegoats.  They no longer become ripe for the grooming via social media of far right billionaires.  They work together for that brighter future and welcome others to join them as they do.

Liz Zeidler, Chief Executive

Photo by Simon Frederick on Unsplash