what’s the problem?
Environmental Collapse
Extreme weather events are becoming both increasingly violent and increasingly commonplace, and governments worldwide have made it clear that they are on the side of the economic system which is driving them. While a wealthy elite make record profits from the sales of fossil fuels, the rest of us suffer the consequences; hundreds of thousands of people are displaced by flooding in India, entire neighbourhoods are burned to the ground in California, and people die in their homes whenever there is a heat wave in the UK.
At the same time, the biodiversity which makes our ecosystem stable and resilient is being rapidly eroded through unsustainable and destructive agricultural practices; the very fabric of our life-sustaining ecology is being torn apart for profit. These twinned issues are careening us towards an unlivable planet, and the governments we’ve trusted to protect us are exacerbating them.
Living Standards Crisis
While billionaires get rich off the destruction of the environment, the rest of us are finding ourselves poorer by the day. Rampant inflation, the loss of any meaningful or secure employment, and the rise of zero-hours contracts, gig economy work, and other precarious employment haunt our communities. Public services are underfunded or simply closed due to the government’s ‘difficult decisions’ (but somehow money is always found for a rise in militarism), with the most vulnerable in our society being left with less and less help, and homelessness increasing by 14% in 2024. Wealth inequality is rife and expanding in the UK, with the top fifth owning two-thirds of all wealth, and the bottom fifth owning just 0.5%. This divergence in living standards means that 50% more people are living in poverty in the UK compared to the 1970s, including more than four million children. At the same time, we are increasingly left without any sense of community in our neighbourhoods, giving rise to a loneliness epidemic.
Rise of the Far Right and Voter Turnout
As if this weren’t bad enough, the far right is on the rise globally. The recent electoral successes of Javier Milei in Argentina, the PVV in the Netherlands, the AfD in Germany, and, of course, Donald Trump in the US, should be making us all extremely worried. As living standards decline, isolated, scared people will find it easier and easier to blame scapegoats such as immigrants and benefits claimants, and to believe the false promises of populist leaders, and the UK is not immune.
The rise of fascism is made possible as people (rightfully) lose faith in our dying system. At the local elections in May, voter turnout in Sheffield was just 32%, with some wards returning as low as 19%. Starmer’s Labour won a ‘loveless landslide’ in the 2024 general election with fewer votes than the party got under Corbyn in 2017 or 2019, and there is still no sense that his party will bring about any significant change. Is it any wonder that people are turning to a party like Reform, which, on the surface at least, is offering a radical change from the status quo?
What’s the solution to multinationals destroying our land, our standards of living and sense of isolation worsening and worsening, and the loss of hope that fuels the rise of the far right? You guessed it! People’s assemblies offer a solution to these problems by reminding us that we, the people, are the ones with the skills, knowledge, and care to run our communities. They teach us that we don’t need to simply stand by while the world falls into disarray; we are political agents, and we can make tangible changes here and now!