One of the most obvious causes of our country’s economic distress is rarely commented on. Yet if we just step back from the turmoil of ever-higher taxes, over-breeding regulations and now tariff turmoil, we will discover the blindingly obvious. Unelected, well-funded, self-appointed lobby groups wield enormous political power in our daily lives and exert outsized influence over government policy and decision making – yet they are accountable to no one but themselves.
The regular assumption is that the lobbying is the result of big businesses spending millions to get their way, but the reverse is the reality. Think about it; why would businesses lobby for higher taxes, more regulations and restrictions to trade? Instead, the world of commerce, which exists by meeting our demands for goods and services, has to spend money that could otherwise go into investment and product development on fighting a rearguard action trying to mitigate the taxes and regulations that burden them with costs and tie them up in knots.
Today’s most influential lobbyists come in the form of not-for-profit entities, often companies, sometimes registered charities, but all can be classified as Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) which seek to act as unelected governments in the sector they wish to control.
It’s true that NGOs can play an important role in advocating for social causes, but their disproportionate influence and unjustified power leads to unintended consequences that harm businesses, workers and consumers alike. Policymakers, be they government ministers or officials, must strike a balance between addressing societal challenges and safeguarding the economic engines that sustain prosperity.
Many charities and campaigns have largely forsaken their original purposes, preferring to focus on political activism ahead of good works. Earlier this month, Greenpeace, founded in the 1970s as an environmental campaign, attacked the US embassy in London with false blood in a protest against arms sales and support for Israel in its war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
Likewise, the drive to change what we drink and eat by taxation and regulations comes primarily from health charities and prohibition campaigners (the latter often taxpayer funded). There are no mass demonstrations demanding our pubs be closed and nightclubs shut down – or that advertising cereals and fast foods be banned from our tellies, yet successive governments have seen fit to introduce a constant flow of tax and ban changes only activist NGOs were demanding.
Consider the scale; there are more than 170,000 charities in Britain, with a combined income of £96 billion, spending £94 billion last year. In comparison the Ministry of Defence cost £53.9bn in the same period. Ironically, but maybe not surprisingly, a study by Conservative Way Forward of charities opposing the previous Conservative government’s efforts to stop the illegal small boat crossings found that between 2017 and 2021, they’d received £203 million in taxpayer funding. Our government was paying people to stop it from doing the job it was elected to do.
For example, Asylum Aid, which is very proud of its role in blocking the plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda, received the vast bulk of its revenue (£1.6m of £1.7m) from either the taxpayer or grants by large donors such as the National Lottery Community Fund, the Open Society Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
The majority of British charities are small – around two thirds have an income of £100,000 or less – but about 9,000 have an income of more than £1m and many use their moral authority as a charity to push tax and ban ideas. Charities and NGOs enjoy moral authority on the grounds they are independent and, theoretically, not beholden to political parties, governments and vested interests.
The reputation of NGOs for impartiality is constantly validated by the media, which treats them as independent organisations which, by definition, are objective and therefore authoritative because they are not tainted by political interest.
Except NGOs have become profoundly intertwined with governments and politicians and are now vested interests themselves. Perversely, without the need to continue their fight for change their purpose would disappear. When did you hear of an NGO talking itself out of the funding and jobs that go with it? That’s why pilot studies or modest reforms are never enough for NGOs, they always demand more action.
This phenomenon is known as the ‘scream test’. If industries scream about regulatory intervention, then activist NGOs say they must be hurting, and the threat or application of regulation must be having the desired effect; but if industry doesn’t scream, the regulation doesn’t go far enough – so let’s make it stronger until they do scream.
Examples of the impact are environmental NGOs such as Friends of the Earth campaigning on Net Zero policies while also opposing nuclear power, resulting in Britain having the world’s most expensive electricity, closing our industries and throwing workers out on the dole. The coming bans on petrol and diesel cars presents the prospect of Britain having no home-grown volume car manufacturing industry, but making only luxury and performance cars mostly for export while we import Chinese electric vehicles.
While the self-interested and self-perpetuating NGOs make their demands, who is testing their claims or holding them to account like we hold politicians to account for their misjudgements?
Who is speaking up for the public and their freedom to choose what they want? If NGOs behave badly, they are less likely to be penalised than a political party – which would lose elections – or a business – which would face a boycott of its products. NGOs face few if any sanctions, which is why their influence is open to abuse.
This double standard needs to be addressed – NGOs need to be as accountable as anyone else.
From dictating industrial and economic policy, to energy provision and food standards, to diversity guidelines in advertising and sports governance, these activist NGOs ultimately denude consumers of choice and businesses of their ability to make a profit from marketing and selling their legal products – all in the name of saving us from ourselves.
Good regulation is vital, it gives consumers the confidence they are getting what they’re paying for – customers need the freedom to choose for themselves and businesses need to be able to meet their demands.
Until the imbalance of the news-cycle driven campaigns of unelected NGOs is no longer given preference by our politicians over the voices of commerce and customers, regulatory burdens will continue to stifle innovation, increase costs and limit consumer choice. Everyone will be a loser, except the NGOs who will be thinking what next to tax and ban.
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