Paul Parker, Recording Clerk for Quakers in Britain, reflects on the state of UK civic space, the demand that charities campaign with ‘niceness’, and why we must press for urgent change.
I grew up in a free country. One in which people were free to express their opinions, to challenge power without fear of reprisal, to say unpopular things, and that prided itself on being the birthplace of democracy and the freedoms which go with it. It wasn’t perfect, but dissent was accepted. Hearing diverse points of view, sometimes strongly expressed, was an important part of how decisions got taken. This country was the UK.
But since 2023, the internationally-respected CIVICUS Monitor rates UK civic space as ‘obstructed’. That’s the same as Serbia and South Africa, and worse than any country in the European Union except Hungary. What has happened?
Over the last decade or two, we’ve seen a systematic peeling away of a once healthy civic space. This is not an accident or a blip. It’s part of a global shift away from open societies, including open civil societies. It’s part of a deliberate dismantlement of citizens’ and civil society’s ability to hold the executive to account.
We now have a new government, and the mood music has changed, thankfully. But there is no sign yet that these key rights will be reinstated. So far, all of the legislation that led to the ‘obstructed’ rating remains on the statute book: the Lobbying Act; the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act; the Public Order Act; the Elections Act. Anti-advocacy clauses are still widespread in public funding contracts.
The Charity Commission has spoken up in defence of charity sector campaigning, but it has made clear that it expects this to be done ‘nicely’. Nothing in the Charities Acts, nor in CC9, restricts charities from taking a confrontational tone where their campaigns demand it, so here the regulator is subtly exceeding its brief.
We’ve seen changes in the policing of protest, the imprisonment of environmental defenders, and the meting out of draconian sentences. It’s stark when seen alongside those handed down to people who participated in this summer’s racist riots – who were motivated by hate, rather than love for the world around them.
In civil society we have the great asset of being explicitly values-driven. We participate in the debate not solely as pragmatic solution-finders or service-providers, but as moral players, driven by a justice agenda deeply rooted in our values, valuing the unique worth of each human life.
This is the problem with demanding unalloyed niceness. When you hold a moral position and see it consistently undermined – wilfully or through neglect – then you have a right (perhaps a duty) to a degree of righteous anger, on behalf of those on the receiving end of injustice. Talk to those working in the homelessness sector, or the migration, or the human rights, about what happens when niceness fails to deliver for those most in need. We have to speak up, to be fierce, otherwise all we’re doing is colluding. We have to recognise that ‘making the world a better place’, to use a phrase I’m coming to loathe as too anodyne, starts with refusing to accept things the way they are, and challenging it relentlessly.
The proposed Civil Society Covenant, setting out how government and civil society can work together, is a welcome step. But I’m not convinced it will cut it as a tool for insisting things work well, that the voices of citizens and those who represent them are heard and taken seriously, and that civil society is seen as a genuine partner in public debate and policy-making. We have a narrow window of opportunity in this Parliament, before the election cycle drives a further toxic debate about protest and dissent, to make some changes.
It is time to press for major change – not so much a reset as a deep clean of our approach to civil society. It’s time to stop engaging with government on government’s terms. It’s time to repeal or replace the measures which have obstructed our civic space, to ensure that civil society voices are put back where they belong: at the heart of debate, bringing their expertise and lived experience to policy-making and all the key decisions about how our state functions in the interests of its citizens.