UK politicians are in the pockets of the rich. Is that democracy?

The National

12 hours ago

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Keir Starmer responded to a question from Green Party co-leader Adrian Ramsay about growing calls to introduce a tax on wealth for the super-rich – those with assets above £10 million – by saying he wouldn't 'take advice' from the Greens, and insisting that 'we can't just tax our way to growth'.
We can, it seems, cut our way to growth though, as long as it's those already at the greatest risk of poverty who'll bear the brunt. On Wednesday ­evening, 333 Labour MPs voted to cut ­disability benefits by £2 billion per year, halving the health element of ­universal credit for new claimants, and ­cutting it ­altogether for new claimants aged under 22.
At a certain point, when the faces and the colour of the rosettes change but the glaring injustices remain the same, we have to ask ourselves why.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (Image: Yui Mok) A common refrain among politicians is that right-wing policies that make life harder for social security claimants – or immigrants, or any other marginalised group – are popular. So popular that they have no choice but to implement them with gusto, because that's the will of the people, I guess.
Meanwhile, I suppose we are to imagine that the average British voter is kept up at night worrying about the prospect of millionaires and billionaires being asked to pay more into our public services.
As Tory leader Kemi Badenoch put it at PMQs, a wealth tax would be 'a tax on all of our constituents' savings, their houses, their pensions'. Who among us doesn't know and love someone with more than £10m in assets lying around? And surely we can all agree that they're the real ­victims?
Back in the real world, a YouGov poll last week found that 75% of people in the UK would support introducing a wealth tax of 2% on wealth above £10m. ­Earlier this year, YouGov conducted another poll on behalf of Oxfam which found that 79% of over 16s in Scotland would rather the government tax the richest than make cuts to public spending.
(Image: YouGov) And while it's true that some ­voters do believe that the welfare system is too ­generous, and the immigrants are ­draining the country of resources, it's ­important to remember that large ­sections of the ­British media, with their own ­vested ­interests, have spent not years but decades pushing precisely this ­narrative. It's disingenuous at best to persuade someone of something and then behave as though it was their idea all along.
Alongside campaign groups Tax Justice UK and Patriotic Millionaires UK, Oxfam identified that the government could raise up to £24bn per year through a wealth tax which would apply to only 0.04% of the population.
At the same time, charities and ­experts from across the UK and beyond – ­extending to the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – have highlighted the damage that cuts to social security could cause to people's ability to make ends meet or simply live with ­dignity.
So, if it's not the electorate telling ­politicians which policies to pursue, and it's not the data or the impassioned pleas of experts that persuade them, then what is it that drives them to make these ­decisions?
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Surely the answer is obvious by now. Time and again, right-wing and ­supposedly centrist politicians prove that nothing matters to them than the feelings of their rich donors and supporters – and nothing matters more to those wealthy individuals and large ­corporations than money.
Successive governments' inaction on a range of urgent issues – from climate change, to energy prices, to raising taxes to fund crumbling public services – becomes far easier to understand once you realise that standing up to behemoth ­corporations and their numerous beneficiaries could cost these politicians dearly.
If power for power's sake is the goal, if fuelling the party machine with big ­donations is a worthwhile end in and of itself, and if securing oneself a cushy ­position after – or perhaps during – your time in office is the ultimate prize, then making an enemy out of the 1% is a ­senseless endeavour.
The dramatic decline in political ­party membership numbers over the past several decades mean that parties have become more and more reliant on a small pool of wealthy donors. ­Analysis by the Electoral Reform Society found that, during the 2024 election campaign, ­Labour received £6.7m from ­'mega-donors', which made up 68.5% of their total donations up to polling day. This equates to 42 times the amount they took from the same type of donors during the 2019 election ­campaign.
David Lammy secured a personal donor a job at the Foreign Office (Image: PA) When we ask ourselves how it is that the Labour Party have sold out on so many principles in such a short period of time, the answer is in the question. What chance does the average person – or ­community – stand to have their voice heard and acted upon by those in power while principles and policies are being sold to the highest bidder?
Just last week, it was revealed by the Democracy for Sale substack that Foreign Secretary David Lammy gave a taxpayer-funded job in the Foreign, ­Commonwealth and Development Office to the former UK president of multinational PR ­company WPP after she donated £5000 to his ­office ahead of the election. This is only the ­latest in a series of jobs for donors that Labour have been scrutinised over.
Under the ideal of democracy which we are encouraged to believe the UK represents, every eligible voter should have an equal say in elections and, by extension, an equal opportunity to have a say in the decisions the elected parliament makes. How far must our political leaders stray from this principle before we recognise that we are no longer ruled by democracy but plutocracy: a society controlled by people with great wealth or income?
Consider that the UK's 50 richest ­families hold more wealth than 50% of the population, according to analysis from the Equality Trust. And while the top 20% hold 63% of the UK's wealth, the bottom fifth have only 0.5% of the wealth.
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Polls might show that the vast majority of the British public want to see the wealthy taxed more, but to imagine that this information would seize the Prime Minister with an urgency to act would be to believe that all views, experiences, voices or lives are equal. You only need to look at how this government – the progressive alternative to the old government – treats the most vulnerable to know that isn't true, not under this system.
As long as money talks and those without are silenced, most of us will be out here screaming into the void. In case that seems too bleak a note to end on, a reminder: it doesn't have to be this way.
Just look at the growing fervency with which the Tories and now Labour have sought to quash dissent through the criminalisation of peaceful protest, and the proscription of activist groups they don't like as terrorists. Even the frantic efforts of the Government to censor a rap group, Kneecap, over political statements is ­revealing.
These are the actions of power under threat. They are terrified of ordinary people speaking their minds and telling them in no uncertain terms that enough is enough. That, alone, should act as ­motivation to keep doing just that.