Abolish Westminster

Our political system is rotten, and everyone can see it.

At the end of January, I finished up edits on my forthcoming book, Abolish Westminster. Little did I know that, just a few days later, a scandal across the ocean would metastasize rapidly into British politics, forcing many to ask questions not just about Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, but our whole political system.

For almost all of us, the first reaction to the horror at discovering what’s in those of the Epstein files which have been released so far has been to focus on the individuals impacted by and implicated in them. And, of course, we should. But we also need to think about the systems and structures which gave these people power in the first place.

In the book, I start at the core of the British state, in Whitehall. Because British government departments get much of their power not from parliament, but from ‘the Royal Prerogative’ - the inherited power of the monarch - they are remarkably unaccountable to MPs, and so the people of the country. This leaves them particularly susceptible to the circulating parade of corporate lobbyists and representatives of the super-rich, of whom Peter Mandelson is just one example.

Passing market sensitive information to a paedophile financier is far enough at one end of a spectrum that it crosses the moral lines drawn by officialdom. But if you consider the fact that a third of the non-executive directors on government departments - the people helping shape their strategy - are also senior financiers, then you see that much of the way our system operates sits on the same spectrum.

Next, I look at Westminster - how our voting system, the whipping system, the procedures and culture of the Commons and the very existence of the Lords leave vast power in the hands of largely unelected cliques, with much of the debate we see on TV little more than theatre distracting us from the real governing behind the scenes. In that real politics, those - like Morgan McSweeney - who represent the interests of people with deep pockets, and so can raise more money, and hire more staff, tend to thrive.

This culture of behind-the-scenes briefings and backstabbings also attracts a certain kind of character to it. Geoff Mulgan was director of policy at 10 Downing Street under Blair. As the recent scandal unfolded, he wrote on Facebook about the appeal of Mandelson and Epstein to many of his former colleagues, saying that “it may have been precisely the hint of evil which attracted and excited so many people in politics and business (and a surprising number at the heart of the current UK government): a sense of being privy to dark arts and transgression.

“Some of the commentary may have this wrong. It’s not that the very visible vices were ignored, but rather that they were, in both subtle and not so subtle ways, attractive to a certain kind of man.”

The problem is that the paucity of democracy in the British state makes it the perfect environment for exactly that kind of culture to fester. And almost everyone can see that now.

This system is clearly in crisis. Already, before these revelations, two party politics was breaking down. With faith in the old parties likely to be dented even deeper, the need to replace first past the post and the Lords becomes unanswerable.

In the book, I look at how the justice system has a steep class inflection, meaning that the powerful are never properly policed. The reality is that it’s only because of a political battle in the US that we have found out about Mandelson’s behaviour. Were it not for the fact that the US Department of Justice has been forced to publish these documents, we would never have known what about the information he leaked. It’s reasonable to assume there are many other similar scandals which will never be uncovered.

I look at Britain’s unique money-system, and how our overseas territories and crown dependencies became the world’s most important network of offshore spaces. Searching through the Epstein library, it’s clear that British territories like the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar are radically over-represented. Over the last 50 years, these spaces, along with the City of London, have played a central role in protecting the wealth and privacy of the emerging global oligarch class.

Over the last decade, we have had three vast leaks of documents from tax havens - christened the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers and the Pandora Papers, showing how the super-wealthy avoided taxes and regulations around the world. Most of the coverage of these focussed on the individuals involved, who came from all over the world. But the wider story, which was often missed, is that most of the companies listed in each of these mountains of paperwork were registered in British territories - the UK itself, or one of its Overseas Territories or Crown Dependencies.

Our uniquely flexible constitution has allowed the hyper-wealthy and their consultancy firms to turn these spaces into castle keeps, where they hoard their wealth, allowing them to buy media-outlets and fund far right politicians the world-over.

I look at the institutions of nationalism - the Royal Family, support for which has fallen below 50% for the first time as a result of Andrew’s role in these papers; and the media, much of which has long been complicit in promoting Mandelson and his parade of hangers-on as ‘sensible’ voices, despite, or, perhaps because of, their connection to the world we are now seeing exposed. The media failed to ask questions just as much as our parliament and prime minister. They almost always do.

Finally, I look at the union of nations. We are rapidly heading towards Holyrood and Senedd elections. Even before these revelations, it looked likely that the SNP and Plaid Cymru would lead their respective governments, and the also pro-independence Greens would have record results in each - as would the ultra-Unionist Reform, implying a further polarisation around the union in each nation, with the far right becoming the leading voice for the UK. There was already a constitutional crisis brewing. Now, it’s just about coming to the boil.

After I finished Abolish Westminster, I re-listened to the audiobook of the most famous work by perhaps the greatest chronicler of the decline of the British state. Towards the beginning of John Le Carré’s Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy, the wide-boy Ricki Tarr says to George Smiley, “I’ve got a story to tell you. It’s all about spies. And if it’s true - which I think it is - you boys are gonna need a whole new organisation.”

Flicking through the Epstein library, and thinking about the British state, that felt apt. If you don’t already, please do subscribe to this Substack, we have exciting plans for how we are going to cover this ongoing constitutional crisis.