With a general election now on our doorsteps, the latest British Social Attitudes Survey (BSA) has provided some numbers for what is already clear: trust in British politics has hit a record low.
The headline figure is that some 45 percent of those surveyed would ‘almost never’ trust a British government of any party to put the ‘needs of the nation’ above their own party’s interests.
Likewise, 58 percent would ‘almost never’ trust politicians (again of any party) to tell the truth when ‘in a tight corner’ – this comes in second only to the findings in the first post-2008 BSA survey, and is up 19 points since 2020.
And this survey was carried out all the way back in September and October of 2023!
Untruths
Unsurprisingly, one of the key factors in this development that the report cites is the behaviour of our parliamentary representatives. Endless back-to-back scandals – ranging from partygate, to tax evasion, to sexual misconduct – are described as having had a “corrosive effect” on people’s trust in politicians.
Ticking along beneath these dramas is over a decade of broken policy promises on issues ranging from the NHS, to Brexit, to the climate, and the cost-of-living crisis.
Whether it be covering-up their failures in government and sleaze (the Tories), or brazenly backtracking on pledges before you’re even in power (Labour), as the BSA report sagely observes, “Telling untruths does not promote trust”.
In this most recent survey, people strongly agreeing with the statement ‘people like me have no say in what the government does’ was found to be at its highest since 1994. No wonder, after living almost two years under our unelected Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
It was also found that 35 percent of people strongly agree that they ‘don’t think the government cares much about what people like me think’, up 16 percent from 2014. With the Tories and Labour duking it out for the most big business backing, this comes as no surprise either.
It is not just Parliament’s foundations where the cracks are starting to show, however.
Numerous surveys have found plummeting trust in the police, the monarchy, and all other institutions of the establishment as their corruption, sleaze, and plain incompetence become clear for all to see.
Democracy
The BSA report concludes that if this loss in trust continues, it could become a threat to the very functioning of ‘liberal democracy’. Already, some 79 percent of respondents say they believe the way Britain is governed needs to change.
We are warned that this reflects a growth in ‘populism’ – defined by them as the belief that you “are being governed by an elite that is disregarding the wishes of ordinary people in favour of the pursuit of their own interests”.
Of course, there has been a rise in belief in conspiracy theories along these lines, with the door left open by the reformist left for people’s distrust to be exploited by those pushing reactionary lies and chauvinistic ideas.
And yet the reality is that we are being governed by an elite: the capitalists, who always have and always will put the pursuit of their profits over the lives of working people at every turn.
What this survey in fact reflects is the growing disillusionment with and rejection of the British establishment by workers and youth. They increasingly feel a deep distrust and disgust towards all of its institutions and the supposedly ‘democratic’ system they uphold.
What alarms the ruling class the most is the revolutionary implications that this holds for the future, as the crisis of capitalism intensifies.
This is why we are building the Revolutionary Communist Party, to not only boot out the politicians, but the capitalist system in its entirety.
