The Three Dimensions of Freedom

by Billy Bragg

  At the Conservative Party Conference in October 2011, the then home secretary, Theresa May, made a speech attacking the act that had incorporated the ECHR into British law. ‘We all know the stories about the Human Rights Act,’ she told the party faithful, ‘… about the illegal immigrant who cannot be deported because, and I am not making this up, he had a pet cat.’

  In fact, she was making it up. The man in question could not be removed because May’s department had failed to follow its own rules allowing partners of UK citizens leave to remain if they could prove they had been together for over two years. The immigrant had been living with his girlfriend for four years so was eligible to stay in the UK, cat or no cat.

  Such spurious accusations of political correctness have also been a key component of Tory opposition to the European Union. The mischievous mendacity of Boris Johnson’s anti-Brussels broadsides in the Daily Telegraph may seem frivolous, with their complaints about EU legislation to ban bent bananas and prawn-cocktail-flavoured crisps, but they mask a serious agenda.

  After forty years of neoliberalism, the UK is the second-least-regulated market among the thirty-six nations of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental forum aimed at seeking solutions to common economic and social problems. Britain’s workers have far fewer rights than those in other EU countries.

  Legislation from the EU challenges the British mania for deregulation. Recent moves by Brussels to bring transparency to the financial sector have been fiercely resisted by the City of London. Right-wing British papers may have defended the curvature of bananas to make the case for Brexit, but their real agenda was the avoidance of EU legislative accountability.

  The EU’s Working Time Directive (which limits the working week to forty-eight hours), the Temporary Agency Work Directive (giving equal rights to agency employees) and the Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive (which does what it says on the tin) all threatened to reverse years of neoliberal deregulation and light-touch taxation which successive British governments have championed.

  The slogan of the official Vote Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s EU membership made reference to the desire to avoid having to implement these directives. ‘Let’s Take Back Control’ is seen as a masterful encapsulation of the British demand for a return of national sovereignty. This repatriation is much heralded by those who stand by their decision to vote for Brexit.

  Yet, in this instance, taking back control does not confer greater agency on citizens. The return of sovereignty to the UK parliament means that there will be no higher authority scrutinising its behaviour than the British constitution, which parliament itself commands. For the Tory deregulationists who were driving the Leave campaign, the ‘Let’s Take Back Control’ slogan had a subordinate clause: ‘… to Avoid Being Held to Account.’

  The fact that the UK was unable to get its own way was seen as a key motivating issue for the campaign to leave the EU. The official Vote Leave website complained bitterly about the democratic deficit in Brussels, although only in so much as the UK didn’t have enough power.

  ‘The UK has so few votes that we can’t block EU laws. We can only rely on having 8 per cent of votes in the Council of Ministers and have less than 10 per cent of the votes in the European Parliament. Politicians have surrendered the UK’s power to veto laws we disagree with, so if the EU decides to introduce a law that will be bad for Britain there is nothing we can do to stop it.’

  Unlike the British tradition of a malleable constitution conferring power on the party that has a majority in the Commons, the diverse nature of an institution representing twenty-eight nations means that there is no single party or ideology in control of the EU. Majorities have to be constructed over every issue. In such an atmosphere, it’s understandable that British exceptionalism would fail to win every debate.

  With their permanent seat on the UN Security Council and their primary role in NATO, the British are used to getting their way. You can hear it in the shock expressed on the Leave campaign website. Their demand for a veto on EU laws and parliamentary representation out of all proportion to Britain’s size betrays a sense of entitlement that fails to recognise the UK’s place in the world today.

  The sad fact is that when Conservative ministers have to sit around the table and be coaxed into making some accommodation with the other twenty-seven members, they can’t help but feel that they are part of someone else’s empire.

  The EU is not without its faults. The process of finding a consensus can be slow and frustrating, so there is a tendency to look to technocratic solutions. Where member states have proved unwilling to conform to rules on fiscal rectitude, the EU has sent in unelected technocrats to cut wages, slash spending and privatise the public sector.

  Clearly, the EU is a work in progress and reform is needed to ensure it is more accountable to its citizens. Yet in an age when the great issues of the day – climate change, tax avoidance, the power of algorithms – challenge us on a global level, the ability of the nation state to respond is limited. Competition has divided society; healing it requires cooperation and, albeit unsteady at times, the EU is forging a path in that direction.

  Brexit is part of a recent trend that has seen nations turn their backs on the multinational institutions that have sought to create collective solutions to global problems. Where the US once took a leading role in encouraging this process, the election of Donald Trump on an ‘America First’ platform has led to a more transactional approach to diplomacy. ‘Moving forward,’ he told the UN in September 2018, ‘we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends.’ His doctrine of acquiescence before aid is reflected in other attempts to unpick treaties that fail to recognise American authority.

  Trump used the same speech to reject the idea that America could be held accountable for its actions, refusing to recognise the International Criminal Court. ‘We reject the ideology of globalism,’ he said, referring not to the neoliberal project but to the institutions that seek to police it, ‘and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.’

  When Samuel Johnson observed that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, he was commenting on scoundrels, not patriotism. None of us can choose the family into which we are born; likewise the community, culture and country of our birth. Though we may reject all when first finding our way in the world, a sense of belonging is a powerful emotion. A blessing and a curse, it can be a source of pride and disappointment in equal measure.

  In the hands of scoundrels, that sense of belonging can be exploited for divisive ends. When Trump seeks to turn love for one’s country into a political doctrine, he’s using patriotism as a shield. ‘My country, right or wrong’ brooks no criticism, never mind accountability.

  But then Trump never has been troubled by responsibility. His shocking statement that he ‘could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody’ and still not lose voters was couched in the characteristic hubris of a man who has been walking away from accountability his whole adult life. Trump’s reliance on the willingness of his supporters to find some justification for him pulling the trigger wasn’t merely a rejection of the notion of being held to account, it was a smug assertion that it wouldn’t matter even if he were.

  As a stark illustration of the demise of our ability to resolve issues through deliberation and democracy, it has echoes in the UK’s Brexit debate. When, during the referendum, Michael Gove declared that people in Britain had had enough of experts, he was turning his back on the notion of an enlightened electorate making informed decisions via the ballot box. Instead, the most complex issue in British post-war history was decided with scant regard to facts.

  This situation is not helped by a media that amplifies the differences of opinion that are the lifeblood of a democratic society. Disputes drive clicks, so every interviewer tries to sniff out that ‘gotcha’ moment that will light up social media. In this charged atmosphere, policies c
ome a poor second to personalities.

  Cartoonish, confrontational characters are encouraged, given licence to sound off and, if they produce ratings, taken seriously by the mainstream. Politicians in this mould are lauded for their straight-talking style, a quality that often betrays an inability to consult, delegate or grasp nuance.

  This is a time of dismissive demagogues promoting a know-nothing politics of swaggering arrogance driven by scorn and spite. Our ability to have a respectful disagreement with our opponents has been torn to shreds by market forces in a deliberate act of irresponsibility.

  In 1949, the US Federal Communications Commission introduced a fairness doctrine that required broadcasters to cover controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that presented both sides of the argument. The aim of the FCC was to ensure that a diversity of opinions was heard, no matter which medium or channel the public tuned in to.

  Shortly after he became president, Ronald Reagan appointed a new chairman to the FCC, Mark S. Fowler, who took office in 1981 determined to implement Reagan’s deregulation agenda across the broadcasting industries. In August 1987, he succeeded in abolishing the fairness doctrine on the grounds that it infringed the First Amendment rights of journalists by denying their free speech in editorial decisions.

  The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, worship, speech, press, assembly and redress. It is implicitly pluralistic in intent, giving constitutional protection to a diversity of dissent. Yet the abolition of the fairness doctrine failed to uphold that ideal. Firstly, it sought to silence opposing voices; secondly, it opened up the market for partisan broadcasting.

  By giving free speech primacy over accountability, Fowler made the rise of Fox News – or something very like it – an inevitability. A year after the abolition, on 1 August 1988, right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh launched his nationally syndicated radio show. Highly popular with listeners, he proved that there was a market for conservative broadcasting. Within a decade, the format came to dominate commercial talk radio in the US and spawned similar programming on cable TV.

  With its commitment to listen respectfully to diverse opinions, the fairness doctrine had been an expression of the Voltairian Principle. Its abolition created a safe space for conservatives to disseminate their views without challenge. In removing the dimension of equality from broadcasting, the Reagan administration made it more difficult to hold those in power to account and contributed to the polarisation of opinion that we see today.

  If there is anything in need of a modern version of the fairness doctrine, it is undoubtedly social media. The digital domains that so many of us inhabit are ruled by consent, inasmuch as we have all agreed to the terms and conditions presented to us on signing up to our favourite sites. Yet there is more than an element of absolutism in the behaviour of the social media empires that offer us freedom of expression on a scale unimaginable a generation ago.

  While we avidly broadcast details of our personal lives to the world, the liberty that we are enjoying is being monitored and the data collected. Algorithms designed to streamline our online experience also have us under surveillance. How do we hold them to account?

  Most of us are aware of the transactional nature of social media. Our parents’ warning that we should never take cookies from strangers has long been discarded as our curiosity takes us deeper into the entanglements of the World Wide Web. While most of us don’t mind websites making a living from our visits, evidence has emerged that the information we freely give up has been used for political gain.

  In 2018, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported that Russian troll factories had mounted campaigns on social media sites with the aim of suppressing support for the Democratic Party during the 2016 election. Posting on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Vine and Google+, Russian operatives had created thousands of accounts under fake names and set about sowing distrust and fomenting polarisation among targeted groups.

  In 2018, it was revealed that a British political consulting firm had mined the data of an estimated 87 million Facebook users without their knowledge. Cambridge Analytica had paid 32,000 US voters to take a personality test, which also contained political questions, via an app that required them to log in through their Facebook accounts.

  The app surreptitiously collected data about their likes and those of all their Facebook friends. When the results of the personality test were compared with the information from their Facebook accounts, it was possible to discern psychological patterns.

  Algorithms then extrapolated the findings of the original 32,000 participants into a data set that could predict the political outlook of millions of Facebook users. That is incredibly valuable data for political campaigns looking to micro-target people with information that could either enforce or undermine their political views. Evidence also emerged to suggest that Cambridge Analytica had been involved in the Brexit referendum, working with the campaign to leave the EU.

  Facebook’s power – it also owns Instagram and WhatsApp – is greatly enhanced by the dominance it enjoys in the social media market. Globalisation has allowed it and other digital monopolies like Google and Apple to develop an extractive business model that makes money from customers in many different jurisdictions, while declaring the bulk of their profits in the country with the lightest tax regime. As a result, regulators have difficulty in holding the company to account.

  However, the Cambridge Analytica data breach has drawn attention to the potential hazards of allowing algorithms access to personal information, no matter how trivial. The more that artificial intelligence becomes involved in our everyday lives, the greater transparency we need about what it is doing and who is programming it.

  While waiting for governments to regulate the tech giants, citizens have been utilising the internet to demand accountability. Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the shooting of unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter began drawing global attention to the killings of African American men by police and vigilantes.

  The Me Too movement, highlighting sexual harassment and sexual assault, was founded by Tarana Burke in 2006. In 2017, following allegations of sexual abuse against the film producer Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo trended on Twitter as women around the world sought to highlight the magnitude of the problem by alluding to or describing their own experiences of abuse.

  In February 2018, #NeverAgain began trending on Facebook following the murder of seventeen students and staff at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. A group of survivors began a campaign for legislative action to prevent similar shootings happening again. They gained over 35,000 followers in just three days and became an active focus for the gun control movement in the US.

  The screens in our pockets have undoubtedly enhanced the ability of citizens to build solidarity in the struggle for genuine change. Taking our inspiration from accountability movements such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #Never-Again, we need to use the connectivity we enjoy to renew the reciprocal obligations that create the framework for a cohesive society.

  The need for collective action is nowhere more urgent than in response to our changing climate. It’s hard to ignore the fact that the planet is getting warmer, in terms of both the scientific evidence and the extreme weather events we experience first-hand, yet denial of this phenomenon is still given currency by elected officials.

  For neoliberals, the idea that climate change is man-made runs counter to their ideology. Economists for Free Trade, a British-based lobbying group pushing for deregulation which includes Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir James Dyson among its advisors, maintains strong links to climate change denial. The EFT’s convener, Edgar Miller, made his fortune by investing in the US shale gas industry and has been named as a founder and funder of a climate-science-denying organisation, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which is chaired by former British chancellor Nig
el Lawson.

  Their fear is that, in order to mitigate the effects of climate change, environmental concerns will have to take precedence over market forces. To create sustainable economic growth will require corporations to be accountable for their practices, yet such is their aversion to regulatory democracy that neoliberals are willing to argue that, although the planet’s climate is rapidly changing, its economic system cannot.

  Yet the Divine Right of Kings once seemed an unalterable fact too. The challenge that faced the English in the seventeenth century was how to curb the absolute power of the monarch. In the twenty-first century, it is the markets that have taken on the mantle of absolutism, placing themselves above the jurisdiction of national governments. Holding the king to account was unprecedented and went against custom and tradition – holding the global markets to account is just as audacious and just as necessary.

  For the moment, the populists have the upper hand in this battle, but their methods are divisive, seeking to split the nation into hostile camps: old vs young, men vs women, black vs white, somewhere vs nowhere.

  When it comes to freedom, what people most desire is the security that comes from having a degree of agency over one’s life. A 2018 poll of English citizens found that only 21 per cent think they can influence their local decision-making process. For many of us, power is wielded far away by people who don’t share our own lived experiences.

  This is the alienating nature of neoliberal democracy: whereas in the past, social democracy generated local profit through local employment, the extractive capitalism encouraged by globalisation takes but does not provide. As a result, people are angry.

  While some of the poorest in society voted for Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK, and wore the gilet jaune in France, the majority of the support for these movements comes from those who are doing okay but feel they should really be doing better. Unhappy with their lot, they find that the narrow options made available by neoliberal democracy leave them with little choice but to revolt. As recent events have shown, if they are not offered meaningful change, they are prepared to vote wilfully for damn-the-lot-of-you chaos.