The Democracy Collaborative’s recently launched UK Index of Systemic Trends paints a vivid picture of a country in crisis – one traceable not to bad luck or poor management, but to Britain’s dominant economic model itself. “It is the economic model itself that is failing the vast majority,” the report’s authors conclude, arguing that real change requires significant departures from its core tenets, especially privatisation and financialisation.
In the light of that analysis, I caught up with one of the report’s authors, Neil McInroy, The Democracy Collaborative’s global lead for community wealth building, to ask what it would mean in practice for Andy Burnham, should he become prime minister. In his critique of Britain’s economic and social failures, Burnham has repeatedly said the country has been on the wrong path for 40 years, a framing strikingly similar to The Democracy Collaborative’s own. So, what would McInroy actually want him to do with power?
“Across the world, you’ve got a series of social democratic politicians who have a part understanding of the crisis and what needs to change,” he tells me. “Some of them dig into what we would call in the UK, Labour values – more nationalisation, not bending over to the power of capital. That’s a window into an understanding of the systemic problem we face.”
But understanding the problem, McInroy argues, is not the same as solving it. “People have known the systemic crisis and said these things for years. The problem is what happens when they get into power. The power of the British establishment, the power of the City of London, we need to remember that Britain is the oldest and toughest plutocracy in the world.”
What’s needed, he says, are politicians with the bravery to resist that pressure from day one. “The first thing you need to do as a new prime minister is to take on the constitution of the United Kingdom and look deeply at how we actually start to redistribute power genuinely to people and communities. That is the starting point.”
Burnham, McInroy insists, would need to make a complete break with Westminster orthodoxy. “You’re not going to have any change that’s actually going to deal with the systemic crisis if you think you can do that from the corridors of Whitehall with the same institutions and the same practices.” He is blunt about the current landscape: “I don’t see any mainstream politician in England – possibly the Green Party aside – who can follow through that fundamental reshaping of the British constitution.”
The stakes of failure are stark. “You’ve got people on the ground feeling the pain because capital is screwing them over and the British establishment is screwing them over,” McInroy says. “And on the other hand, you’ve got politicians saying: ‘Isn’t this awful’. If you don’t start to deal directly with the systemic crisis, the next prime minister after perhaps a brief Labour interlude will not be a new Labour Party – it will be Nigel Farage and the far right, because they’re filling the space between people’s pain and a prescription that’s all wrong.”
So, I pushed him, if Burnham knocks on his door and asks what to do, what’s the answer? “Three things simultaneously,” McInroy says. “First, look fundamentally at the constitution –reshape it, move rapidly toward a federal England, redistribute genuine power. No messing. Do it straight away. Second, lean into what’s already happening in communities and places – so, huge investment in co-ops and employee ownership, building real economic democracy. Third, as part of that constitutional question, give genuine power to local authorities – protect them in the constitution – and give genuine powers to regional mayors.”
It was clear from our conversation that while McInroy and The Democracy Collaborative want to see Labour’s next leader take a far more combative approach to reform, they harbour real doubts about whether Burnham will deliver. If, as they expect, he falls short, their analysis points to one likely destination – a Reform government within a matter of years.
Click here to download the UK Index of Systemic Trends.
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