Preventing the slide right - why the charity sector must start acting now

You don't need me to tell you that things are very weird and very worrying right now.

My working days currently provide a strange contrast. I spend my mornings and afternoons speaking to charities and colleagues about how we can possibly navigate burnout, despair, funding scarcity and widening social inequality. Then, sandwiched in the middle, I'll often head for a lunchtime walk in the woods with a left-leaning politics podcast to decompress (yeah, not a healthy or effective habit I know).

You'd think these two worlds would share a lot of common ground. And often the big picture concerns are the same. But the talking points, the detail, remarkably have almost nothing in common.

I've listened to podcast episodes do a forensic deep-dive into the impact of National Insurance increases and never once mention the impact on the charity sector - despite constantly talking about how policy changes impact vulnerable people and social inequality.

Similarly, the audio hand-wringing I listen to about the state of the world - why are right-wing movements and disinformation on the rise? how can we get more people to care and mobilise about the policies that impact them? - are all-too rarely reflected in my conversations with charity leaders and in strategy workshops.

It feels like there are so many people whose hearts are in the right place, whose brains are working overtime to come up with the answers we need, but they're all working to a different set of questions.

This feels dangerous - because I really don't like where we're heading

Summer 2024 and the cautious optimism brought by a change of UK government feels a million years ago already. Trump 2.0 has been everything we feared, but with more fascist salutes and chainsaw-wielding billionaires. In recent days, a far-right party has just come second in federal elections in Germany with ~20% of the vote.

Closer to home, Labour has been a very mixed bag (that's if we're being charitable) including a string of avoidable bad news stories, plunging approval ratings and some woeful performative nonsense on immigration.

Suddenly, a Conservative or Reform government - possibly a monstrous merger of the two - in just four years time feels horrifyingly plausible. 2024 showed us that economic strife brings down governments, regardless of who is in power. And the likely economic shocks emanating from Trump - a Catherine wheel of erratic policy announcements and petulant tariffs - are likely to blow away whatever green shoots are slowly sprouting from this Labour Government (and there are undoubtedly some).

And that's exactly what happened in the US last year - people lost faith with and rejected a long-term project that was bringing about steady economic improvement but not making enough people feel better-off in the short-term, then voted in something far worse.

I know I'm not alone in these concerns - chocolate consumption by our friends over at LarkOwl is off the scale:

This would still be worrying if we had reliable and accurate information sources, but without them it's a nightmare

So much of our media is explicitly right-leaning, billionaire-owned, riddled with vested interests. Online platforms are full of hatred, with designed-in toxicity. The interests, needs and voices of so many people simply aren't represented anywhere.

Many outlets simply aren’t fit for purpose. This is typified by the BBC, a once dignified old ship being battered by the waves of change. Reacting too slowly to one trend, as they continue to allow their entire news agenda to be dictated by a print media consumed by people who are increasingly older, politically homogenous and few in number. Overreacting to another trend, as they seemingly buy the myth that "nobody has much attention span any more” and dumb down proper debate and scrutiny into shorter, ever more meaningless soundbites.

And we have a Labour government that seemingly can't muster a strategy to combat this and is instead flailing around throwing red meat to Reform voters.

There's no nuance to our mainstream debates about the NHS, tax rises, winter fuel payments. Nobody in a position of authority seems capable of setting out a case for the benefits of things like immigration, or closer alignment with the EU.

People are losing faith in the status quo, making them ripe for exploitation by those who will take their vote then do nothing to serve their interests. And there seems to be no coherent movement to combat this on the left, which is seemingly resigned to losing the argument and being unable to reach the people we need to.

Stormy times ahead for the BBC and other media outlets battered by the seas of change

But there has to be a way of engaging people - we can't give up

There's something about the current landscape that doesn't add up to me.

People supposedly don't care for detail and have little attention span, yet Joe Rogan's podcast with its mammoth three-hour episodes consistently tops the charts.

And we know people do care deeply about their wellbeing - they spend a high proportion of whatever disposable income they have on it, and social media is saturated with wellness advice and products. But the number one determinant of health and wellbeing – a functioning society that provides good healthcare, social care and housing – is precisely what's under threat.

In these contradictions lie a glimmer of hope, if we can figure out a way forward.

The charity sector, which has lost so much in recent years, still has the benefit of connection. In a world where we descend deeper into our echo chambers, charities reach across the divide to support, bring together and engage people. Vulnerable people with zero interest in the news, and zero faith in politics, trust us and interact with us on a daily basis.

Of course we mustn't abuse that trust by preaching to people, treating them like children, or inducing them to make specific decisions.

But could we find ways to make politics more relevant to them and shine a light on those who will ultimately do them harm? Could we support them to mobilise, advocate for themselves and see the power of their decisions?

Because forget the criticism - charities must be prepared to be political

In all honesty, I'm tired of this argument that our sector has to stay out of politics.

​Most people acknowledge we're not just here to deal with symptoms and dole out sticking plasters. We have to identify root causes, challenge oppression, seek systemic solutions.

Perhaps, until recently, it's been just about ok to be passive and cautious in this role. But, increasingly, those root causes and that oppression take the form of fascist governments that ally racist leaders with chainsaw-wielding billionaires. When the game changes, the rules of engagement must too.

There's a difference between being political and party political. Nobody is asking you to put Green Party stickers in your office window or an inflatable Keir Starmer in your meeting room. But having tricky conversations about the rise of the far right, and how it impacts your cause and the people you support, shouldn't be off limits.

When the people controlling government spending start wielding chainsaws on stage, perhaps it's time to start being political after all (image credit: BBC News)

Righto, but how should we actually respond as a sector?

I'd be lying if I said I had the answers.

Simply having the conversation as a Board or leadership team is a helpful starting point. Also, thinking how and where you might reflect this in your organisational strategy.

I shared some short-term tips in this previous blog, focused on the upcoming 2024 General Election. Many of these tips still stand: encouraging people to register to vote at the appropriate point, amplifying relevant policy issues, combatting disinformation.

This is a start, but it won't be enough. We need new ways to engage people, connect social issues with their lives, and challenge the lies and liars that dominate our news agenda. We need our sector, and our issues, to be part of the discussion on politics podcasts and beyond.

I don't know how, but I didn’t want to not write something because of that. If this can’t be a blog full of practical advice, it can be a cry for help. Or, at the very least, a cry of pain.

Because, make no mistake, finding solutions over the next four years could be one of the most important things we ever do.

Like Trump 2.0, future right-wing Governments will be bolder, better organised, more enabled by the elite. They'll continue to tear up our social and political norms, erode the checks and balances of democracy, and slash funding for social causes. If we can’t act now, the path back could become almost impossible to navigate.

So if you don't know the answers either, let's start by at least talking about the issue, sharing ideas, building a movement. If you have suggestions, we're all ears. Even better, add them as comments below.

Just don’t be silent and complacent. We simply can’t afford to.

“Essential to the far right's advance is the narrative of inevitability. Essential to resistance is [...] an acknowledgement that we are not the passive recipients of history, but active agents within it. Nothing is foretold. The history is being written collectively by all of us.”
A quote from Alex Andreou on the most recent episode of Quiet Riot, one of those aforementioned politics podcasts