University of Kent at Canterbury

Who Voted For Consumer Activists?

Consumer activism has acquired a formidable respectability in Britain. Major corporations, such as Shell, Monsanto and the Bank of Scotland have sought to placate various advocacy groups in recent months. The New Labour government, too, has bent over backwards to satisfy lobbyists purporting to represent the consumer. Faced with criticism from the anti-genetically modified food lobby, for example, Tony Blair and his ministers substantially altered their stance on the issue. In July, they launched a populist public relations campaign against "rip-off" Britain. The Office of Fair Trading has adopted the image of a crusading consumers' outfit.

A growing number of pundits, meanwhile, thrill that consumer-lobbying organizations are finally giving the people a voice. Some have even gone so far as to remark that the new popularity of consumer activism suggests the emergence of an alternative to party politics and electoral participation. "Consumers, not voters make a difference," enthuses Noreena Hertz in the New Statesman. "Politics is dead - long live the consumer."

This is all rather sad, for there was a time when consumer groups and the many other advocacy groups that dot the British landscape were rarely described in flattering terms. They were characterized as what they still are - professional lobbyists. As much as they would like us to think otherwise, lobbyists are not representatives of the people. They are in the business of advancing relatively narrow interests.

The nature of lobbying has not changed in recent years, but other aspects of political life have. Since the 1980s, Britain has experienced a dramatic decline in party politics. Membership in all of the major parties has fallen, and the number of people who passionately identify with a political party has plunged. Involvement in trade unions, churches and other civic organizations has also dropped significantly.

This decline in social engagement reflects a fundamental erosion of political life. The old Labour Party was forged around issues that had to do with wealth redistribution and welfare, while the Tory core voter was inspired by the traditional values that the party stood for. Today, both parties have shed their ideological baggage and have self-consciously distanced themselves from any distinct views.

This absence of ideological commitment, in turn, has opened a chasm between Britain's political parties and its electorate. Consumer and other advocacy groups are filling the void. Since politicians are no longer seen to represent the public, various advocacy groups are able to claim that they are the voice of the people.

For its part, the media has uncritically embraced this phenomenon. The activists, it is said, are the good guys. Unlike sleazy politicians, they are supposedly untainted by corruption or self-interest. They are typically portrayed as altruistic and idealistic souls whose motives are beyond reproach. On any day of the week, a newspaper or television news program will interview the head of a group purporting to represent the interests of consumers, single parents, disabled people, children or some other segment of the population. The assumption seems to be that these advocacy groups have the moral authority to speak on behalf of everybody they claim to represent.

But the question that must be posed is, how did Britain's Consumer Association, say, gain the right to speak on behalf of millions of British consumers? Is it an organization that was elected by the people? Did it gain a mandate from heaven? I know that I am a consumer. I also know that although the Consumer Association speaks on my behalf, I have never been consulted about my opinions on the positions that it seeks to advance.

Not only are advocacy groups operating on a shaky mandate, but they seem to have been granted a semi-official right to break the law. Their members, such as the organized protesters who regularly block road building and improvement projects in Britain, are treated with the kind of indulgence that one usually reserves for one's grandchildren. The high profile activist who goes by the name of "Swampy," and who is known to barricade himself inside tunnels in order to stop construction, has been portrayed by the media as some kind of underground Mother Theresa.

Anti-GM food protesters, meanwhile, are hailed for committing acts that most ordinary mortals would consider unforgivable crimes. When Lord Melchett, the aristocratic leader of Greenpeace, was recently arrested for criminal damage and theft, he was genuinely shocked by his treatment. As far as he was concerned, his action was a "direct expression of `people's power.'" As the self-appointed voice of the British people, Greenpeace represents its actions as exercises in "active citizenship" that keep "democracy healthy and responsive."

Greenpeace possesses a paternalist notion of democracy. Like other leading consumer advocacy groups, it is driven by the conviction that it cannot wait for an unresponsive political system to right what in its worldview are considered to be egregious wrongs. The thinking seems to be that since the little people are incapable of making their voices heard - and perhaps even incapable of knowing what to say - they need the professional protesters to speak for them.

There is little doubt that British democracy is imperfect and generally subject to vested interests. But whatever its defects, a parliamentary system at least invites people to choose their leaders and to get rid of politicians who do not represent the general will. My MP - with whom I disagree on virtually every subject - at least has the right to claim to be my representative. A self-professed leader like Lord Melchett, by contrast, only has a mandate to speak for the clique of people who granted him his post.

The important question here is not whether consumer activists are right or wrong about a particular subject. Rather, what we ought to be asking ourselves is whether democracy should be permitted to be eaten away by the oligarchic networking of increasingly powerful lobbyists and whether Britain's advocacy groups deserve to be hailed as the solution to a problem - the degradation of British politics - of which they are merely a glaring symptom.