DiEM25 leading in online democracy: have a look at what our members are voting on now
We have been working to create a DiEM25 capable of stepping-up its game.
We are living, more than ever, in a Europe in denial, with that powers that rule over our societies determined to crush the system that has brought them to power instead of allowing it to change, even by a centimetre, towards a direction that would benefit the many rather than the few. They need to be opposed and defeat, and there is no movement better placed for championing this struggle than DiEM25.
Although we have not been able to stop this yet, we have not been without successes. Our call for a New Deal for Europe, and now for a Green New Deal for Europe, has become mainstream: with all the risks of co-opting that that contains. We have united thousands of European around a common ambition for Europe: a continent at the service of its people, their dreams and their welfare. Last Spring we united political forces from across the continent under a single, common European programme for the first time in history!
Every day, through our work, we are proving that there is more that unites us across our borders than divides us within them.
We are proof of a Europe that is maturing beyond its nationalist adolescence. And we are just getting started.
We’ve spent the past year planning, and discussing where we go from here. We have debated various ideas about how our movement should operate, and we have had them voted on in an Assembly in Prague, and online by our pan-European membership. Together, we have spent the year 2019-2020 forging DiEM25 2.0, and now we are ready for the final touch: the Coordinating Collective’s Implementation Plan, following almost seven months of deliberations is ready to be voted on.
The six votes, relating to additions or changes to our Organising Principles, can be found below.
It is important that we all engage in this defining moment for our movement’s development:
The establishment of Task Forces on Feminism, Diversity, and Disabilities
The increasing of the tenure of Validating Council members
Future amendments to the Organising Principles through DiEM25 Member Assemblies or the PDP process
The improvement of the coordination of National Collectives and Electoral Wings with the Coordinating Collective
The introduction of a Membership Fee to make the movement financially sustainable
The establishment of a member-led process for organising All-Member Votes
Please click on each of these links and cast your vote.
Together with the political direction set-out by the DiEM25 2.0 vision, the above votes introduce the tools the Coordinating Collective feels are necessary for the movement to rise-up to the challenges we find before us.
Our message for a united, truly democratic Europe, with countries that put their people first, is more important and relevant than ever. With the finalisation of this review, we must all turn our focus to how we can make DiEM25 a strong force for progressive politics in a Europe that desperately needs it. We have almost finished the foundation, now we must start building. Together.
Carpe DiEM25!
The Green New Deal for Europe offers a more compassionate future for workers
If one thing has become apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that compassion and consideration for Europe’s workforce is fundamentally at odds with the ethos of our current system.
This current crisis has not only revealed fundamental contradictions of function and organisation at the core of the national health care systems of certain nations, but also within the European Union as a whole. Nations were slow to act, failed to provide adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and failed to coordinate as a union which betrays a profit before people-mentality. The Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) offers a brighter future for workers by decentralising decision-making processes that would allow people to weigh in on how crises are handled.
It has been self-evident since SARS in 2003 that new forms of viruses capable of creating pandemics were coming.
We even knew that it was probably going to be some form of coronavirus. As the virus was taking hold in China, European leaders such as Italy’s Giuseppe Conte, were urging their nations that “we were prepared for this, we had a plan in place and we’re implementing it.” A month or so later the UK, Italy, France and Spain all had death tolls higher than 20,000. Chomsky illustrated this point in a recent interview: “The scientists knew perfectly well that there were other pandemics coming, probably of the coronavirus variety. It would have been possible to prepare at that point.”
However, little to nothing was done because of the foolish ideological assumption of the ‘neoliberal hammer’: “that governments are not allowed to do anything, that governments are the problem, not the solution.” So, then you turn to drug companies: “they have the resources, they’re super-rich because of the gifts we lavish on them. They won’t do it. They observe market signals. Market signals tell you there’s no profit to be made in preparing for catastrophe down the road.” The decision of whether and how to prevent this crisis could have been made either at the top of governments or at the top of companies — our politicians chose the latter.
The GNDE will help to remedy this lack of action with the decentralisation of decision-making.
The decentralisation of authority will empower local communities to deal with pandemics in ways that best suit them. It was not so much that certain strategies did not work when they were actually put into place. It was more that they were universally applied across countries without being tailored to certain areas based on needs and demographics. Where testing was rolled out in certain areas in Germany, we saw infection rates rise but death tolls slow. However, poor coordination between European nations on the best testing kits to procure meant that each nation went to do this alone with the UK repeatedly buying kits that were faulty or did not work.
Full lockdown and social distancing is more likely to be effective in areas with high infection rates and amounts of vulnerable people — such as the elderly or those with underlying health conditions. But they are less likely to work where those people aren’t as highly present. Establishing a Green Solidarity Network will help connect cooperation arrangements between municipalities, regions, and communities, enhancing information sharing and political decision-making across Europe.
A lack of coordination between regions within nations as well as between nations has been a fundamental problem with the ways that governments have handled the current crisis. The issues deepen when you look at it not just from an individual state but from the perspective of the European Union. There was a fundamental lack of coordination between nation states in the effective procurement of PPE before and throughout the crisis. On a global level, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had neither the funding nor the power to enforce any large-scale international collaboration necessary to combat the pandemic due to the lack of willingness by participating nations. According to the Financial Times, procurement was first discussed on January 31st but it took four negotiation attempts before a deal was made in mid-April.
The GNDE aims to promote discussion and cooperation between nations, and not just in times of crisis.
The Green Solidarity Network serves as a vehicle for decentralised decision-making as it will help disconnected parts of Europe to come together in discussion over how they run their communities. The GNDE aims to invest in public services across the continent — from public parks to childcare services, investing in only the areas that certain communities need. This investment will focus on worker led cooperatives and community projects with an emphasis on municipal or local ownership.
The failure to provide adequate PPE in most European nations illustrates a basic lack of concern for human life. Justifiably so, much of the media attention has been on health and care workers that are being made to work long hours without adequate protection. This has meant that catching this virus and potentially infecting hundreds of other vulnerable people feels like a certainty for many health workers. However, this means that less attention has been focused on those working in essential shops and services. The till workers and bus drivers who are repeatedly exposed to potentially sick people are getting paid very little. The GNDE offers essential workers support where the current plans of governments fall short.
Fundamentally, the GNDE puts workers at the heart of Europe’s green transition.
It does this by:
- Establishing a Green Solidarity Network that enhances horizontal information-sharing and political decision-making in regions, municipalities, and communities.
- Guaranteeing decent jobs to all European residents who seek one as well as instituting a three or four-day work week, fair wages and local job creation.
- Investmenting in worker cooperatives and community-led projects based on municipal or local ownership.
- Instituting a European Health and Care Standard for public healthcare.
- Ensuring that all municipal public transport around the continent is free or available at a low cost.
This crisis has made many people unemployed and overworked others. The GNDE aims to guarantee decent jobs to all European residents who seek one, based on a four-day working week with lower overall working hours, and a care income to compensate care activities helping frontline health workers in hospitals and care homes. Throughout this crisis we have seen frontline health workers, care workers and those working in essential industries pay to commute to work. The GNDE will ensure that all public transport around the continent is free at the point of use or available at a low cost that incentivises its use. A fleet of public taxis and car-pooling services that ensure maximum mobility for all Europeans will also be available for use in the event of such a crisis occurring again. Having resources like this available could help take the strain off of public transport when capacities are limited through social distancing.
The GNDE will not only allow us to cope better in times of crisis but will generally raise the standard of living across Europe. It will do this through the establishment of the European Health and Care Standard, a minimum standard for public healthcare across the continent, and Green Public Works funding to parts of Europe that fall below it. The Green Public Works would act as a public investment agency that would channel Europe’s resources into green transition projects around the continent.
This crisis has illustrated how neoliberalism favours profits before people.
The slow-to-act EU countries and European Union more broadly show the flaws in top-down decision-making as well as the lack of material concern for workers. A lack of coordination or communication at the European level has left each nation to fend for itself with varying degrees of success. The GNDE offers a brighter future for Europe’s workers with solidarity and compassion at its core.
Andrew Potter holds a masters in History from the University College of London (UCL). He plans to do a PhD in Intellectual and Emotional History of Suicide in 19th and 20th century Britain. His other interests and expertise are in the intellectual history of anarchism, left libertarianism and anti-totalitarian thinkers in 19th and 20th century Europe.
SOS! European hospitals are struggling
Austerity is infecting European hospitals, and their staff members are demanding more than just applause.
More than a year ago, on March 18, 2019, French hospital emergency staff took to the streets, as unions called for a day of mobilization to save state hospitals.
Nurses, doctors and cleaning staff all rang the alarm bell with the observation that, due to a lack of financial resources and staff, public hospitals were collapsing and patients were, as a consequence, suffering or even dying.
The number of patients cared for in French hospital emergency departments increased from 10 million to 21 million between 1996 and 2016, with almost frozen staffing levels and a drastic reduction in resources. Over the last ten years, austerity measures have enabled the French state to “save €12 billion.”
These so-called ‘savings’ have fatal consequences, both literally and figuratively. This is the case in state hospitals.
During demonstrations that took place a year ago, medical staff were already demanding the creation of a minimum of 10,000 nursing and care assistant positions in order to cope with an ever-increasing number of patients in an ageing country with an ever-increasing number of pathologies due to stressful working conditions. All this within an economy with a constant demand to do more with less.
In 2007, the information that the State owed public hospital staff 23 million hours of unpaid and unrecovered overtime, caused a nationwide scandal. Even after clear signs of public discontent, the situation of the workers didn’t fundamentally change afterwards.
Hospital staff are unable to recuperate overtime or even take leave due to a lack of staff. Working days are de facto extended beyond legal norms. In addition to this, there is very low pay as well as unequal pay levels between staff with French and foreign qualifications. The number of beds is constantly decreasing — forcing care workers, especially emergency doctors, to juggle to find beds in other departments or even other hospitals.
The new neoliberal management of hospitals has transformed state hospitals into business entities with profit-driven motives and “just-in-time” logistics: no investment, and a recurrent lack of common equipment and medicine.
This forces caregivers to constantly invent last-minute solutions that increases their already unbearable stress levels. As a result, a large number of nurses leave the profession after 3 years of practice and 25% of hospital doctor positions are not filled.
During the year preceding the COVID-19 crisis, hospital nurses and doctors not only organised a large number of demonstrations, they also carried out different types of actions when strikes were impossible such as lighting hospital rooms at night performing the SOS sign, giving interviews to all media afterwards. Nothing succeeded in getting the French government to take action. Thousands of heads of department first threatened to resign from their administrative delegation and then actually resigned.
The only reaction from the French Government? Contempt: French people will remember the condescending attitude of the Minister of Health visiting the hospital in Rouen in 2018. Instead of taking into consideration the demands of the caretakers concerning the impact of health on its citizens as well as those of the caretakers, the French government sent police forces to fire tear gas, harming the demonstrators.
Then came the pandemic.
The already overwhelmed public hospitals were finally and unfortunately able to demonstrate what they had been shouting for several years: a lack of medical gowns, no masks and few beds. French patients had to be sent to Luxembourg, Germany or Switzerland due to the insufficient number of UCI beds and ventilators.
Caregivers had the heavy task of sorting out the patients they were going to be able to treat. On top of that, emergency rooms could not receive the elderly from retirement homes. This has been a disaster for healthcare workers who had been warning for so long about the future of hospitals. It has been a tragedy for the patients and their families, and a tragedy for French medical staff who will have to recover psychologically from a drama that could have been partly avoided, as in Germany, Denmark and other countries where the hospitals have been receiving more attention in recent years.
To date, France has 142,291 contaminated patients and 28,108 deaths, which puts it in fifth place in terms of deaths per inhabitant. Every evening at 8pm French citizens applaud for care personnel from their balconies or windows. The hospital staff, exhausted and themselves victims of the virus, may have had the illusion of finally being heard.
Unfortunately, as soon as the confinement was lifted, Emmanuel Macron’s government responded to the requests for an increase in wages, manpower and resources by only offering a medal and a bonus of up to €1500 for some of the COVID-19 fighters: the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Healthcare workers have held protests in front of Paris hospitals on consecutive tuesdays in May. A dozen worker’s unions are now calling on all citizens to come out in support of healthcare workers at a demonstration on the 16th of June.
Belgium and the rest of Europe.
As for our neighbors in Belgium, the state had to urgently find €1 billion to be paid to hospitals so that they could pay the salaries of their healthcare staff until June. In the midst of the crisis, the government showed its incompetency by failing to deliver 3 million much-needed FFP2 masks to hospitals because they didn’t meet the quality standards.
These instances could have been prevented if the millions destroyed ahead of the outbreak due to its expiration date had been replaced. The cabinet defended themselves by arguing that the choice to not replace the stocks was because of the ‘complex’ situation and that they were waiting for a ’strategic plan’ to not be ‘wasteful with taxpayers money’. Even if this is the case, it only shows a lack of swift decision making and the devastating effects of austerity.
New royal decrees now require the automatic requisition of employees. Even unqualified ones, in case of a new emergency, while a major restructuring plan for Belgian hospitals was announced at the end of 2019 with the potential loss of 180,000 jobs: inacceptable.
The Belgian healthcare unions have filed strike notices.
During the visit of Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès, healthcare staff turned their backs on the Prime Minister in Brussels on Saturday the May 16 for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. In a response to this, Federal Minister Marie-Christine Marghem compared healthcare workers taking part in the protest to “children who did not get what they want.” This clearly shows the disconnect between politicians and workers in the frontline of the crisis.
Elsewhere in Europe, the situation is not much brighter: three days ago the British Home Secretary Priti Patel has sparked anger when announcing that foreign healthcare workers will have to continue to pay a huge fee to be allowed to work for the NHS just when the lack of nurses and doctors led to a disaster in the fight against COVID-19.
The ideological bias of neoliberal governments in Europe has cost more lives than ever.
This crisis has revealed what the healthcare workers had unsuccessfully tried to warn us about for years. This time, however, the population is ready to fight alongside them, having experienced on a large scale the stranding of our healthcare system and, more generally, of public services and its consequences on their families. Citizens are aware that the time has come to reinvest in public services and will hopefully soon express it on the streets as well as at the polling stations.
As a movement, let’s support all layers of society by advocating for DiEM25’s proposal for recovery: the 3-Point Plan!
This article was authored by Emma Justum and David Vlieger. The featured photograph depicts an action done by hospital staff in France to call attention to their lack of resources.
Rest In Power, George Floyd
The Belgian National Collective of DiEM25 stands in solidarity with the protesters of Minneapolis.
A train with the words ‘I can’t breathe’ passed through Belgium a couple of days ago. As the injustice of the murder of George Floyd has made news around the world, people are demanding an end to police brutality and racial discrimination. Another victim of police brutality against black and brown people, George Floyd’s name joins that of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and countless more.
This crisis is piled onto the current employment and health crises in the US, the combination of which has showcased the state’s blatant disregard for human life.
The maneuver that was used by police officer Derek Chauvin is discouraged and even largely banned by most law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, it was taught to officers in Minneapolis as an appropriate form of ‘restraint’. But the video clearly showcases that this brutal form of restraint by the officers was conducted with a dangerous insouciance for human suffering. During the 9 minutes, George Floyd is seen pleading to breathe. As Black Lives Matter and others state, this constitutes a serious crime.
Much of the media coverage has focused on the rioting and looting that has taken place in Minneapolis and in states across the country. But there have been many peaceful protests held across the country, such as in Harlem where hundreds of sitting protesters chanted ‘No Justice, No Peace’. Movement leaders have also been seen protecting businesses from being looted with human chains, redirecting activists to peaceful protest. In an emotional speech, Killer Mike called for political mobilisation over destruction, despite the anger that is resonating across communities in the US and abroad:
“It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. (…) Now is the time to plot, plan, strategise, organise and mobilise.”
The police forces’ own behavior can also be considered rioting behavior, as has been claimed by some. In civilian videos, they are seen kicking peaceful protesters in the face, throwing them to the ground, and even macing children. Activists and reporters have been shot by rubber bullets, whilst others lost an eye. Police vehicles have even been used to attack and disperse crowds.
Staff members from news agencies are notably being targeted in what looks like a concerted effort by police to intimidate and brutalise citizens without any documentation of their actions. Reporters and production crew from the LA Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and MSNBC have been thrown to the ground, and persecuted by tear gas at point blank range as well as ‘unidentified explosives’.
It is unclear whether police forces are being given undue leniency within their own structures or whether factions of police officers are being created through the chaos. Most likely, the resulting violence is a dangerous mix of the two. It must be said that several police sheriffs and officers in other states have been sighted kneeling for George Floyd and marching with protesters — signalling an existing divide within law enforcement agencies. Meanwhile, violent police militias, encouraged by President Trump, have begun terrorising neighborhoods by shooting unarmed civilians at their doorsteps with paint pellets if they do not go back inside their homes.
Predator drones — usually used in warfare or to surveil the border — have also been spotted flying over Minneapolis. In states like Orlando, police are considered ‘outside agitators’ as they are exerting their violence in communities other than their own. Although Joe Biden has released a statement on the event, he has failed to denounce the actions of the police against citizens. By not doing so, he is failing black communities everywhere.
Progressive activists in the United States and around the world are supporting the people of Minneapolis by launching their own actions calling for justice.
Thousands marched through police on the Manhattan bridge in New York, and President Trump retreated into a bunker as demonstrations grew around the White House in Washington. Protests are filling the streets of London and Toronto, and Iranians are holding a vigil for George Floyd — to name but a few. Actions against police forces in the United States have begun to take place, either through the jamming of their walkie talkies with Yugoslavian music, or DDoS attacks on their websites by Anonymous.
The demands of activists partaking in the current George Floyd protests are still emerging, but activists have already called to defund the police. Not only have body cameras and other initiatives already failed to protect black and brown communities, but protesters are also noticing the stark difference between how their police and hospitals are resourced. While police officers wear paramilitary gear, protesters reflect on how “some doctors in our hospitals are still wearing garbage bags for PPE.”
At DiEM25, we understand police brutality as yet another symptom of a society whose structural violence is already manifested in starvation wages, unpaid work leaves and vast unemployment, and racial discrimination. Rioting and looting is expected as a response to a society focused on profit and no longer on the welfare of its people. During the pandemic, governments have bailed out banks and big business instead of working people and their communities. Alex S. Vitale rightly states in The End of Policing that “No bankers have been jailed for the 2008 financial crisis despite widespread fraud and the looting of the American economy, which resulted in mass unemployment, homelessness, and economic dislocation.”
We stand against racial profiling and discrimination everywhere.
The Belgian National Collective of DiEM25 condemns the racist ideology rendered more visible and present under President Trump, and the police brutality that is terrorising protesters and reporters in the United States.
Stories of racial profiling and police provocation are not rare in Belgium. Police controls conducted on Moroccan youth have resulted in recent deaths, such as that of Adil and Mehdi Bouda. We therefore also condemn the ongoing police brutality and the racial discrimination of black and brown people in Belgium. The Belgian government must tackle racism in its own country as a matter of urgency.
To support activists and be an ally, consider donating using the links below:
BLACK LIVES MATTER: An organisation fighting for the BLM movement.
BLACK VISIONS MN: an organisation that is led by Black, Queer and Trans people.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Fights for the overall equality fight.
The crisis of Care: Carers are not ‘hard to reach’, they are easy to ignore
Lessons learned about care and care homes from a working life in Leicester, England.
Throughout my working life there have been three unifying themes; gender, race and social class. Having now left the UK to live in Turkey, I am very interested in DiEM25 and am hopeful that Social Care will be an issue that DiEM25 will look at. I’d be particularly interested in talking about this to women in other countries and interested to find out if there are pan-European Care companies. I’ll explain why.
When the extent of Coronavirus was reported on in English hospitals, the TV scenes were chaotic and distressing. I immediately had visions of horrific scenes in care homes. The Care system in England was already broken, way before the virus arrived. If the Health service was already in crisis, the situation in Care would be catastrophic.
Years of underfunding the health service, and the removal of locally accountable Strategic Health Authorities replaced by undemocratic Clinical Commissioning Groups, has led to less qualified staff, lower pay, and longer working hours and waiting lists for appointments.
For the recipients of, and those who worked, in Social Care, the consequences of a fragmented and 85 percent privatisatised service have been dehumanising. Once run mostly by Local Authorities, the Care sector is in all but name unregulated.
The Home Care Agency.
Working for a national Home Care agency was an absolute eye-opener. We were paid extremely low wages. We didn’t get paid travel time so that the actual wage you ended up with was miniscule.
The role was isolating. Staff were not adequately trained and in particular, there was a lack of mental health training or support to ensure a resident’s quality of life. Carers provided empathy and humanity in the health sector, but were unpaid for this labor and had to do so in their own precious time.
Carers didn’t have time to sit and talk to people — to listen, to let people talk. Carers were there to clean, to feed, to prompt medication. The writing up of notes was to be completed during the home visit. Paperwork was often missing, inaccurate or illegible — it was chaotic.
Early on, I was sent to care for a woman who had dementia and spoke Bengali. There were two carers standing over the woman, shouting at her and pointing in her face. I was a very new carer who had had middle class jobs up till that point: these two carers had been doing these jobs for years. I felt very conflicted, but I had to say something. I gently intervened and said, “You don’t shout at people with dementia, it will be very frightening for this woman if you are standing over her and she is sitting and you are pointing in her face.” I went back to the managers and said, “I really don’t want anybody to get into trouble — this is not what this is about — but when I did this visit I was aware that the carers really didn’t know how to support people with dementia.” The managers were very nice — everybody was really nice — but the managers said “Oh no — we’ve not had our dementia training either!” So that was my introduction to care in Leicester.
I joined the Labour Party when Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015, and I became quite active locally. I remember sitting in a meeting in the town hall with the elected mayor, Peter Soulsby, and nine or ten others. We were talking about a campaign he wanted to do locally to promote the Labour Party.
We were discussing possible issues, and I said that, given that Leicester and the East Midlands generally had a very low wage economy, and a very large proportion of BME women working in social care, I thought that it would be a really good way to connect with people when we went canvassing and door knocking. We would be able to raise these issues and get people talking, listen to people’s concerns and in particular to get women involved.
His response was incredulous. He said: “Oh, we don’t have an issue with social care in Leicester…” My jaw dropped and he must have noticed because he said, very nicely, “No, no, I’m serious. It is very rare that we get social care issues raised with us” His response was so telling, given that the service was on its knees.
Care is off the radar.
Care is largely a women’s issue, a working class women’s issue and massively a migrant and Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) women’s issue. Just as Peter Soulsby didn’t think Care was an issue, the establishment, most of the media and the public don’t think it is an issue now, because it’s not on their radar.
Then, as now, a major problem was that there were not nearly enough carers. Here in Turkey the vast bulk of care homes are owned by the state, whereas in Britain, 85% of care homes are private. I remember that years ago Leicester City Council had a very well-run home care system. It was all run by the local authority, so the carers were all on proper terms and conditions. OK, they were still paid low wages. There were still problems. But there was an infrastructure; there was training and support. Private Care homes are first and foremost businesses. There is therefore a lack of durable and connected infrastructure for Care.
There were therefore significant problems, such as the wrong medication or dose being given, or incorrect timing or the omission of doses. If carers had poor literacy, there was no support. If a carer had fifteen minutes or thirty minutes to make a home visit and they had to take the notes and update them, as well as check the medication that is being administered – it was a big mess. There was never enough time, it’s endemic — as Ken Loach portrays so vividly in Sorry We Missed You.
During my six months working for the Home Care agency, it was clear that the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) carers tended to be given more complex and time-consuming cases — the residents with multiple problems, acute physical and chronic illnesses as well as dementia. There was a general lack of support for BME carers. A lot of the managers were white, and you know how it is, just like in male hierarchies, promotions were given on the basis of who you knew and got on with. You could see how black and asian women in Leicester were losing out and given worse jobs.
In my second involvement with the Care sector, I trained managers of both private care agencies and care homes, as the County local authority was concerned about a lack of consistency of care. Carers frequently resigned from home care agencies and care homes but moved on to other care homes and homecare agencies in the area. My role was to help managers develop good employment practices: to train them in staff recruitment, retention, equality and diversity. As I told them, it was essential that they included carers in developing the Care policies.
Racist abuse of migrant and BME carers occurred often, and most managers were not trained or skilled enough to address this unlawful abuse. Frequently, managers told of the difficulties they faced with the owners of Care homes and agencies. Managers needed more staff, more equipment, and even more food for residents. A culture of fear pervaded the Care sector from the top down.
Carers are told to read and adhere to a whole pile of Care policies. They are told they will be liable, even legally liable for some breaches of policy, especially Safeguarding policy. There is no paid time to discuss them, and misinterpretation is easy. There are high levels of disciplinary actions and terminations and very few carers are represented by a trades union representative. As well as having your employment contract terminated, carers can be barred from working as a carer again — if for instance they are found to have breached Safeguarding policy.
Deprivation of Liberty.
Some people are living in a Care Home because they lack the mental capacity to safely live in the community. They may be subject to an Order known as a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguard (DoLS). Ass a personal representative independent of Social Services and the Care Home my third role involved in the Care sector was to check that a person subject to the DoLS was neither objecting to the deprivation of their liberty, nor that the deprivation of their liberty was too restrictive. Many people with dementia in Care Homes are subject to a DoLS.
During regular visits, I spent time in many Care Homes — speaking, listening to, interacting with, and observing residents and staff. I read Care Plans put in place by social workers and checked that any concerns and conditions were raised and addressed.
With a very few exceptions where excellent care was provided, the Home Managers and carers were struggling with an acute deficit of staff and resources. Carers were fearful of raising their concerns openly. If they felt the social worker was not dealing with the issues, there was a threat hanging over the Home that the resident might be removed and ‘placed’ elsewhere, with the loss of around £1500 a week income.
In most homes, and again with a few exceptions, it was almost impossible to get the General Practitioner (GP) to visit a resident. There was also an acute lack of nurses in the Nursing Care Homes. Frequently, the one nurse in a large Care Home I visited was too busy to speak to me, and after waiting and having a few minutes of their precious time, nurses often apologized and told me they couldn’t help with my query as they were from an Agency and didn’t know the resident. I would be directed to the busy manager who wouldn’t be able to help either and would refer me back to the nurse.
This is my testimony on Rosa’s case, which is one example of how broken the Care system is:
“I visited a lovely care home, with kind carers, cleaners, cooks and managers. I read all the relevant paperwork at the home and discussed Rosa, who I would be visiting fortnightly, with the senior carer/deputy manager. I was informed that Rosa lacked the mental capacity to care safely for herself in the community and was subject to a DoLS. She was losing weight, would not come out of her room and was increasingly aggressive. She would spit, scratch, hit and throw things at staff, telling them to get out of her room. When left alone she would scream and cry at night as well as during the day.
English was not her first language. I advised the deputy manager on how to support the resident with her mental health and weight loss. I asked what Rosa liked: flowers; colours; photos; music; films; pictures on the walls? The deputy manager didn’t know (Rosa had already lived at the Care Home for around a year at the time of my first visit).
I pointed out she may well regress at times to the concentration camp she had been in, and would need very gentle care. The deputy manager did not know that Rosa had been in a concentration camp, and indeed she said she had heard of one but didn’t actually know what a concentration camp was. She was a lovely, 23 year old deputy manager of a care home. I described what Rosa may well have witnessed, heard and experienced in the concentration camp. The deputy manager was shocked and was keen to help Rosa and a plan was put in place, whereby the deputy manager would oversee a lot of Rosa’s care during the day. We tried to get extra language support for Rosa but none was available.
For about 2 months the plan seemed to be helping. Rosa gained weight, the home carried out regular weight checks. Rosa stopped hitting and carers were by and large able to undertake her physical care. Some carers noticed that she would talk to them more. She was, however, still crying at night sometimes.
We had asked the doctor to provide anti depressants, but these were not given consistently. Paperwork was missing which made tracking progress difficult. After around 3 months of visits I noticed a decline. The deputy manager had been taken off the “floor” to do all the paperwork (which now needed to be logged onto a computer) in readiness for a CQC inspection. It became increasingly difficult for me to read up to date notes as the only computer was in the manager’s office and she was always busy on it.
There were not nearly enough care staff and the deputy manager told me carers were leaving without giving notice because they were so stressed. I told the home I would have to proceed with an application to the Court of Protection as Rosa’s DoLS was too restrictive. I said I didn’t think moving Rosa from the home would benefit her, but the only way we could get the Local Authority to act and provide the extra hours of appropriate social inclusion care, was if the court ordered it. I knew it would take months before the case reached the Court of Protection.
Rosa died before her case got to court.”
Carers are not ‘hard to reach’, they are easy to ignore.
Companies make massive profits out of the exploited labour of carers. But until carers are supported and funded to unite across regions and borders, they will continue to die from Coronavirus and continue to be exploited. Residents will continue receiving a poor and in many cases inhumane service.
DiEM25 will need to include care workers if they are to make a difference. I hope discussions can start and a thematic group can develop. I hope to be part of those discussions and that group.
To maintain the anonymity of carers and their testimonies, the names in this account have been altered.
The Green New Deal for Europe guarantees social and climate justice
The only way we can avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate breakdown is by organising at the global level.
Neither individual, nor single state action will make a dent in the current crisis. We must be at our loudest about this now, when international solidarity falters in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. We must strive to embolden truly global action.
In this light, the Green New Deal for Europe (GNDE) can be the vanguard in this fight, but not because of some inherent European superiority. In fact, it is the opposite – European Union states have cumulatively contributed 17% of total GHG emissions from 1850 to 2012 according to a recent study, second only to the USA. The principle of common but differentiated responsibility remains central to international environmental response, but it is not fully implemented.
Instead, the EU has been widely accused of perpetuating green colonialism in its environmental policies. More than ignoring the history of resource extraction across the Global South, the EU has been repeating it. The new free trade agreement with Mercosur is just another example in a long line of policies utilised by the EU to evade its responsibilities.
How can the Green New Deal for Europe push things forward?
Fundamentally, the GNDE aims to bring about a reorientation of priorities in production. However, it also seeks to promote social justice, responsibility and oversight by establishing Green Public Works (GPW), an investment programme powered by the European Investment Bank (EIB). The GPW will ensure massive public investments in green infrastructure, housing and community projects, among others. Broadly aimed at re-structuring the entire economy of the EU, providing decent work, divesting from fossil fuels and more, the GPW will be funded via Green Investment Bonds issued by the EIB.
What about the international perspective?
First, the GNDE will pursue the inclusion of ecocide as a crime against humanity in international criminal law to recognise the existential risks posed by the climate crisis. Secondly, it will establish the Environmental Justice Commission (EJC) to follow through on the amendment. This body will ensure that the Green Public Works will not repeat the mistakes of the past and confront European colonial legacy.
Internally, empowering the EJC to monitor the implementation of the Green New Deal and investigate any emerging issues is crucial to the success of the entire project. EU-wide transparent oversight that is laser focused on addressing will resolve and prevent any unforeseen externalities. Moreover, in championing internal accountability, the EU will finally back up its claims of being a leading voice in the struggle against climate change.
This, as a result, will be of immense importance on the international stage. The Green New Deal and the Environmental Justice Commission, acting together, will ensure that Europe reconciles with its historical role in this crisis, giving it legitimacy at the global level.
Externally, the EU will be able to push for international reform from a position of a credible actor. This will improve the EU’s standing, allowing it to push for meaningful international reform in a variety of areas, building solidarity with other state and non-state actors. The recognition of ecocide is only one such reform. Others include, for instance, a fully-fledged legal definition of climate migrants and refugees at the international level, allowing asylum and other rights to those fleeing their homes due to climate change.
The international system is based on a longstanding post-war neoliberal consensus that is currently undergoing significant changes.
The waning of Western power that erected it and the strain put on the system by the COVID-19 pandemic are making sure of that. With the Green New Deal and the EJC, the EU has a chance of being on the frontlines of these changes. It can direct the system to reforms that will benefit the climate, while prioritising social justice.
Right now is the moment to act – it is clear from my own research on the international system during the interwar period that times like these provide unique opportunities to shape the future of global governance. Even an EU that embraces the Green New Deal remains only one actor among many states that espouse protectionist nationalism, a slew of multinational corporations driven by profit above all and publics that remain passive or sceptical. It would be impossible for the EU to persuade the IMF or the World Bank to cancel the debts of poorer states, for example. This is without even looking at restructuring these institutions in ways that would ensure they work towards reducing global inequality, instead of maintaining it.
Fortunately, the European Union will not be alone.
Climate-conscious grassroots movements all over the world are springing into action in response to the COVID-19 crisis as states’ inability to protect their populations is exposed. At the transnational level, the recent launch of the Progressive International dares us to dream of a unified progressive movement. Together, we can exert significant pressure on international institutions by uniting grassroots and national groups to act in unison.
With allies at the local, national, and international levels, an EU that embraces the Green New Deal for Europe can reform not only itself, but the world at large.
- Renegotiate international criminal law to recognise climate damage that amounts to ecocide is a ‘crime against humanity’.
- Establish the EJC to monitor implementation of the Green New Deal for Europe along the dimensions of international, intersectional and intergenerational justice.
- Empower the EJC to investigate issues pertaining to environmental justice and propose recommendations to legislative bodies both inside Europe and around the world to address them.
- The EJC should investigate the international dimension of environmental justice, ranging from trade relations to the rules of the game for transnational corporations.
- The EJC should pay particular attention to the challenge of intergenerational justice — both looking at addressing past injustices and promoting tools to ensure that future generations inherit a habitable world.
This is the only path forward towards a future in which humanity defeats the climate crisis, while upholding the principles of social and international justice.
Dr. Vsevolod Kritskiy is a Swiss National Science Foundation postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, currently working on international communism in the 1920s. He received a PhD in International History and an MA in International Affairs from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Aside from his academic experiences, he also worked in non-governmental and United Nations agencies, and is currently volunteering for the Progressive International.
Multinationals, how much do they pay and where? A call for transparency
We need to make country-by country reporting public.
Tax justice is becoming an increasingly foremost theme of crisis bailouts during the Coronavirus pandemic. The current crisis is showing all the flaws of a system designed not to guarantee maximum transparency but to hide the most basic information from citizens with the excuse of ‘confidentiality’. If for some of these problems a profound reform of the European Union is required, for others the solutions are simpler and more immediate. There is no lack of tools, there is a lack of will. A first straightforward step towards greater transparency would be to make the country-by-country reporting (CbCR) public.
What is country-by-country reporting (CbCR)?
For each country in which it operates, a multinational shares information such as turnover, profits, how many taxes have been paid, how many employees it has, and how much capital is invested. However, today only financial institutions are required to make this reporting public. Multinationals are obliged to communicate the information contained in this report only to the Revenue Agency — but not to make them public. The only remaining opposition to this most elementary transparency measure comes of course from multinationals and industry groups that benefit from opacity. But there is also a clear political responsibility if this path has not been followed.
The EU Commission presented a proposal on the issue back in 2016, but it excluded a number of important accounting elements from country-by-country reporting; such as sales and purchases, asset values, stated capital, public subsidies, and the full listing of subsidiaries. The European Parliament has since then weakened its position by introducing an easy way out which would allow corporations to keep information secret if they believe they are “commercially sensitive.”
In November 2019, a resolution on country-by-country reporting at the EU Competitiveness Council missed the qualified majority needed by just one vote. Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Sweden considered that the Competitiveness Council was “not the appropriate Council configuration for adopting a general approach on the proposal.” Since then, nothing has changed.
The Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles case.
Fiat-Chrysler’s called for state support from the Italian government in response to the Coronavirus crisis. On May 16, Fiat applied for a state guarantee to cover a €6.3 billion loan which has triggered howls of complaint from the public, pointing out that the car maker isn’t an Italian tax resident. The company indeed officially fled from Italy six years ago, when Fiat became Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA), and moved its headquarters from Turin to Amsterdam. The loan the group has requested to the Italian government would allegedly allow FCA’s parent company to save cash and pay a €5.5 billion dividend that is due to shareholders before the closing of the planned merger with France’s PSA Groupe (the owner of brands like Peugeot, Citroën and Opel).
Even if FCA’s parent company has sufficient liquidity to help its Italian subsidiary restart production, it prefers to keep it in its coffers. So, given FCA’s complex corporate structure, aid from Rome would ultimately support the whole group, which pays taxes in several European countries, including Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
Italian citizens should be able to know “whether the company moved its tax domicile to the U.K. to obtain a tax advantage, but the only way to get that information would be to publish country-by-country reporting that is not public,” said Tommaso Faccio, the head of secretariat at the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT). Even the Minister for Southern Italy and Territorial Cohesion, Giuseppe Provenzano, publicly said it would be “an act of transparency and civic sense for FCA to spontaneously share its country-by-country reporting with the Italian government.”
A call for transparency.
With the publication of the country-by country reporting there would be greater transparency for citizens, but also for investors. It would be a matter of bringing greater confidence in the system and in the public institutions. The most common objection against those who ask a public country-by-country reporting of multinationals is that it contains trade secrets — the disclosure of which would lead to a consequent loss of competitiveness of the company. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting this thesis and some companies spontaneously make their reports public. A strong and firm European leadership on the issue of public country-by-country reporting could fix the current environment of secrecy and abuse in the tax practices of multinational corporations.
In 2016 DiEM25 launched the “Transparency in Europe now!” petition in order to demand the EU to be transparent and accountable to the people it serves, collecting thousands of signatures. In recent years, nothing has been done to address the problem of lack of transparency in Europe. For this reason, introducing transparent government across the continent remains one of the eight pillars of DiEM25’s Progressive Agenda for Europe. As part of DiEM25’s call for transparency, the movement has recently published Euroleaks, which reveals how important decisions that affect all our lives are taken — in our name — behind closed door.
Get involved in building our Progressive Agenda for Europe.
The Green New Deal for Europe can shield us from future pandemics
Never before has humanity been faced with such global challenges that need global solutions — we must band together in our future actions to tackle this health and climate catastrophe.
I remember watching a documentary several years ago that explained scientists’ prediction about the ways in which the human species might come to an end on earth. There were six different ways and I remember three of them: an asteroid hitting earth, a nuclear war, and a pandemic. I cannot recall whether global warming was a common idea at that time, but in any case I was too young to give any serious thought to those risks for humans. Never had I imagined that many of those risks would move closer to us with increasing speed since then.
The pandemic has made us aware of the risks that come with our way of life
Scientists have long been aware of the risks of coming into contact with wildlife. EchoHealth Alliance, a NGO devoted to the prevention of the spreading of diseases and protection of animals and humans from infectious diseases has been monitoring disease hot-spots around the globe for years. According to the president of the EchoHealth Alliance, dr. Peter Daszak there could be up to 1.7 million unknown viruses in wildlife.
The risk of coming into contact with these viruses is ever increasing due to our way of life. Clearing forests to build roads, mines and buildings, not only destroys the environment and increases the risk of climate breakdown, but also moves humans into closer contact with the habitat of wildlife. As such, the risk of triggering the next pandemic is exponentially increasing and nobody really knows what the consequences could look like. COVID-19 appears to be less severe in children than in older age groups, but we might not be that lucky next time around — such pandemics could endanger generations to come.
The burning of fossil fuels and human health
Although there is no direct link between the current pandemic and global warming, human activity is the main factor of both. Meanwhile, global warming and the increase of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are driving a series of health problems.
One study published in the European Heart Journal last year found that air pollution, mainly from burning fossil fuels, is the cause of 8.8 million extra deaths globally each year. This number actually exceeds the extra deaths from tobacco smoking, which according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) is around 7.2 millions per year. Furthermore, polluted cities appear to have been the most affected by COVID-19 — people in these cities are more likely to already suffer from the health impacts of pollution and are rendered more vulnerable to the virus. Pollutants can also act as ‘carriers for contagion’.
As one of the authors, professor Münzel from the University Medical Centre Mainz, Germany explained: “Since most of the particulate matter and other air pollutants in Europe come from the burning of fossil fuels, we need to switch to other sources for generating energy urgently. When we use clean, renewable energy, we are not just fulfilling the Paris Agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change, we could also reduce air pollution-related death rates in Europe by up to 55%.”
Of course it does not stop there. Rising temperatures can drive mosquitoes and other disease-spreading insects to areas unnatural for them until now. Malaria and other infectious diseases could become common even in developed countries.
Furthermore, extreme heat waves, like that in Europe in 2003 and 2019, are associated with excessive rates of death and hospitalisation. Global warming also increases the likelihood of wildfires like the ones we have seen in Australia earlier this year, with loss of human life, millions of animals, destruction of buildings and dangerous air pollution, especially for people with chronic conditions.
As usual, all the problems described above disproportionately affect the most vulnerable segments of the population, such as the poor, the sick, the elderly, and people who live alone.
It’s a systemic problem
Based on the recognition that global outbreaks of once localised infections were becoming likely, the World Health Organisation (WHO) established a group of experts in 2015 in order to try to identify the biggest threats.
In a meeting in Geneva in 2018 the experts predicted that a disease resembling COVID-19 was probable. They even admitted that the predicted outbreak was preventable. Jennifer Kahn, a journalist for the New York Magazine, who interviewed dr. Peter Daszak, quotes him in her article: “The problem isn’t that prevention was impossible. It was very possible. But we didn’t do it. Governments thought it was too expensive. Pharmaceutical companies operate for profit.”
Whether the decision by the governments is surprising depends on one’s point of view. But as far as pharmaceutical companies are concerned, Dr. Daszak hit the nail on the head. Just as for any other private company, their own institutional structure compels the pharmaceutical firms to choose profit before any other values, including human life. As a Goldman-Sachs analyst put it in an interview with CNBC in 2018: “Is curing patients a sustainable business model?”
The thinking behind it is that as people get cured from a disease, they do not need to buy the medicine anymore. The consequence here is falling revenues for the pharmaceutical companies. As an example, the analyst used falling revenues of Gilead Sciences because its hepatitis C drug – costing $85,000 per treatment – had cure rates of 90%. Ironically, Gilead Sciences also owns the drug Remdesivir, which has been touted as an effective treatment for COVID-19 patients, according to a recent study. The costs of the study itself? Paid by the public of course.
Thoughts for the future
There are voices that say that we should not be panicking about climate breakdown. Personally, I wish I had started panicking many years ago. According to the predictions of climate scientists, our time is running out to prevent ecological, and, perhaps, even societal collapse.
In this regard, the Green New Deal for Europe, advanced by DiEM25, offers the most comprehensive approach to the problems we are facing in Europe and the rest of the world.
First, it declares a climate emergency in the EU and commits to continuously updating climate targets to align with scientific consensus.
Second, the green transition outlined in the Green New Deal for Europe is based on economic and social justice.
Third, it stresses that the financial constraints of investments are artificial and it outlines concrete steps of how to pay for the green transition.
Finally, it recognises that the Global South bears an unfair share of the global warming — apart from the already-existing exploitation from multinational corporations.
Its policies offer an immediate response to the current crisis. Its proposal of a European Health and Care Standard, for example, would establish a minimum standard for public healthcare across the continent, setting up a resilient healthcare system to cope with future health crises. Making green technology available at low or no cost to developing countries could also help reduce the pressure on the environment and limit involuntary migration.
The European Commission has adopted — at least on paper — some of the aspects of a Green New Deal. But Ursula von der Leyen’s vision fails to recognise the level of public work and financing required for the green transition. Without this recognition, the European Commission’s plans have slim — if any — chances to succeed. This is another reason why these aspects are central to the Green New Deal for Europe.
The power of the industry lobby in Brussels should not be underestimated. It is no surprise that some EU politicians have been trying to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to postpone policies for a green transition. In the face of this considerable opposition to the European Commission’s paper is only filled with words like ‘Europe should’ of ‘the European Commission will propose’, showcasing a lack of urgency during the crisis.
Our tasks as activists could be delineated in several directions. On the educational level, we should spread the idea of the Green New Deal for Europe in our local communities. At the same time we should encourage people from these communities to express their own ideas about the green transition.
The challenges we face today, be it global warming, or pandemics, or falling living standards for the majority of the population and the rising inequality, have the same roots
A global economy, whose centerpiece is maximising profits, leaves less room, if any, for other human values.
The Green New Deal for Europe campaign extends cooperation with other grassroots organisations in order to keep the pressure on national governments to pass laws and implement EU directives that move the economy and society towards a sustainable just transition. Good examples should be praised and foot-dragging should be exposed as inexcusable.
Never before has humanity faced such global challenges that need global solutions — it is now more important than ever that we band together transnationally in our future actions to tackle this health and climate catastrophe.
That’s why the DiEM25 and Sanders Institute backed Progressive International is calling for a Global Green New Deal. Indeed, “the pandemic is the best chance we’ll ever have to be shocked into action before the climate crisis overwhelms us.”
Read the Green New Deal for Europe report.
Redi Pecini was born in Albania and moved to Denmark in 1999 shortly after finishing medical school. He is currently working as a specialist in heart diseases at the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife and two kids, and has been a member of DiEM25 Copenhagen DSC since February 2017.
Read Redi Pecini’s article ‘Global warming will not spare Denmark’.
Failure to deal with Dominic Cummings is a failure of British democracy
In the past week Boris Johnson’s most senior adviser Dominic Cummings has faced criticism from across the political spectrum and the country for breaking lockdown at the beginning of April.
In a statement on Monday, Cummings admitted that he returned to work at 10 Downing Street after his wife showed symptoms for COVID-19. After the Prime Minister tested positive for the virus, Cummings drove 260 miles from London to his parents’ home in Durham where he did not isolate as per his own advice, instead taking a trip with his family a 40 minute drive away to Barnard Castle. The reason for such an excursion in the circumstances, Cummings stated on Monday, was to test his eyesight before the long drive back to London.
At this time, the lockdown in Britain was at its height and the British people, on the government’s orders, had sacrificed their way of life for the common good, to “protect the NHS” and “save lives.” Meanwhile, mothers struggled to feed their children, dying patients were denied seeing their loved ones, and the continually repeated words of Boris Johnson were heard on every TV, radio and social media: “Stay at home.” The wave of anger descending on Mr. Cummings now doesn’t stem from political opportunism; it comes from a feeling of betrayal, the feeling that the most powerful unelected man in Britain has taken the country for a fool.
Cummings’ acts of hypocrisy and arrogance warrant a resignation.
Cummings actions are undeniably wrong — breaking the lockdown against his own explicit rules at a critical time in the pandemic – and it would be reasonable to assume that he must face genuine consequences. Catherine Calderwood, former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, was pressured into resigning in April for making trips to her second home, as was Professor Neil Ferguson, a leading scientist in British government, when he allowed his mistress to visit his home.
Arguably the actions of Cummings are more extreme, and put more people at risk, so a resignation is the least the public could expect from a government that was honest and just. But the British establishment, it would seem, cannot afford to let their chief adviser go; in the immediate aftermath of the exposé, ministers leapt at the opportunity to earn their way into Cummings’ good book, with tweets and statements made expressing support.
Establishment closes ranks.
Following the controversy of Cummings’ initial actions came further shock and disgust from the public at the unanimous support of the cabinet ministers. Senior ministers such as Rishi Sunak, Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson tweeted expressing that in their view Cummings had acted “reasonably” and as any good father would, an insult to the many families who have followed the lockdown guidelines and suffered as a consequence.
Opposition within the party has been scarce, but MP William Wragg has said that the defence of Cummings is “humiliating” and “degrading”, and that the cost of supporting the government adviser in this controversy would be loss of “valuable public and political good.” One junior minister, Douglas Ross, has resigned on the basis that Cummings was “well-meaning” but wrong, and the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party has joined 24 Tory MPs in calling for Cummings to reconsider his position. Nevertheless all senior cabinet ministers have kept in line with the chief adviser’s claims — including Michael Gove, who said on LBC that he, like Cummings, has tested his eyesight by driving. To much of the public, this is an astonishing and ludicrous claim which indicates the depth of Cummings’ importance to the government.
Cummings isn’t the leader of the Conservative party or the country — this isn’t a case of rallying behind the front man in a time of crisis — and yet the astounding loyalty to him demonstrated by cabinet ministers, putting their integrity, honesty and credibility on the line, goes some way to demonstrate the extent of his power in government. How far would the cabinet go to support a fellow minister in such a mishap, or a lowly MP? Would they be written off like Catherine Calderwood or Prof. Ferguson?
In a disturbing parallel of Malcolm Tucker in British comedy series The Thick Of It, or Sir Humphrey in British sitcom Yes Minister, Cummings has worked his way to the very centre of British government, bypassing the democratic process entirely, pulling the strings of the most drastic change in recent British political history — Brexit — and leaving us, the public, wondering whether satire imitates life or the other way around.
Man of the people.
The sentiment behind the fury of the public is that one man in government thinks that the rules apply to everyone but himself — but Dominic Cummings isn’t even an elected MP or a civil servant. He has never claimed to represent the interests of the people.
He’s an adviser, a spin doctor, the mastermind behind the political moves of Johnson and his cabinet, and he believes that the rules don’t apply to him because, as we’ve seen in the past few days, they don’t. The British establishment has bent over backwards to save this man’s job, and after stumbling through a statement of poor excuses, proven lies and clear admissions of guilt, its business as usual at Number 10.
Populism in the time of coronavirus.
This reveals a worrying aspect of the current British government, interwoven with Johnson’s populist tendencies, which was highlighted also during the Vote Leave campaign (led by none other than Dominic Cummings). Johnson, Cummings and the government are attempting to gain public backing for self-serving actions which go against the public’s interest — an ugly streak of populism, built on a basis of deceit and corruption. It worked for Brexit, it worked for Trump, but it’s not working now.
In the midst of a pandemic that has ripped the fabric of ordinary life, as the government has floundered and flopped at every opportunity — delaying the lockdown despite warnings, failing to protect NHS workers, broadcasting vague and useless advice, and now this — in true British style the public seems most gravely offended by the sheer cheek of Dominic Cummings, his arrogance to assume he’s above the rules, his audacity to lie and act sanctimonious in the aftermath.
The actions of Johnson’s government during this crisis, and the case of Cummings and the shameless defence of him by all prominent ministers, has eroded much of the public faith in the PM and his government. It has been revealed in the direst of circumstances that Boris Johnson and his cabinet represent the people of Britain as much as Trump or Bolsonaro represent the ordinary American or Brazilian, as they ridicule the disease and safety precautions, claim to have everything under control and dodge responsibility like it’s coronavirus.
These three leaders built their careers on toxic politics — lies, fear, and hate. They claim to have made their countries stronger, and yet they have each made embarrassments of their nations with their conduct in dealing with the pandemic, and as a result the UK, the USA and Brazil are amongst the worst affected countries in the world.
There has certainly been a huge amount of anger from the public towards these figures, but to what end? Will Joe Biden get the better of Trump this year? Will there be another general election in Britain before 2024? The Dominic Cummings saga goes to show that, in Britain, the will of the people comes second to the will of the people in power. If those like Dominic Cummings are not held to account, the engine of the populist right will continue to rumble on and democracy in Britain will be made redundant.