Anti-protest lobbying shows the problem with corporate influence

Today we discover the extent of corporate lobbying of the Scottish Government in the corporate sector's pursuit of crackdowns on pro-Palestine advocacy, protest and support. It is another very good example of why we should question the perceived legitimacy of the lobbying industry.

The Herald reveals that Barclay's Bank asked the Scottish Government to intervene and “help balance the debate” as it faced a range of direct action over its extensive business links with companies closely associated with the Israeli defence sector and which are implicated in the destruction of Gaza.

(The Scottish Government wrote back with some general assurances but declined a meeting with the First Minister, which would have been more admirable had Barclays actually asked for a meeting with the First Minister.)

Another lobbying campaign over Palestine involved the defence industries. They wrote to the Scottish Government with a six-point plan for cracking down on protest, including proscribing groups under the Terrorism Act and using the secret service to disrupt direct action protest.

In the perceived wisdom over what is good and not good for our democracy, this is all viewed as healthy. It is a relentless mantra of corporate interests that lobbying improves policy. The theory is that by representing the 'complex interests' involved in 'wealth creation', the barriers to growth can be removed and so the economy can grow faster.

In reality, this is very hard to justify for two specific reasons – the lopsided definition of 'good' and the entirely unbalanced access to power involved. In a circular argument, relentless lobbying on the merits of lobbying means that in modern politics, corporate interests and the perceived public interest have been all-but merged and this is then used to justify lobbying.

But what is 'good' for wealth is not at all necessarily 'good' for society. When corporate interests 'improve' policy for them it almost inevitably harms the interests of others. Corporate lobbying generally involves arguing that big business should be exempt from paying its fair share for things like infrastructure and public services and that checks, balances and conditions applied to their conduct should be weakened and removed.

This always ends up meaning things like reduced environmental standards (polluting industries), watering down of pro-consumer or pro-taxpayer measures like rent controls or a tourist tax (the landlord and hotel industries respectively), the weakening of planning conditions (property developers) or in this instance, direct attempts to reduce civil liberties and influence policing.

In a democracy these are all arguments that it is legitimate to make, but it is wrong to present them as 'pursuit of public good' because that is not what they are. These are all the pursuit of private gain. But that isn't the primary problem.

It is true that, in general, better information makes better policy and so representing the private and collective interests of people affected by policy is likely to improve the deliberation of that policy – but only if all information is equal. If information is available to policy-makers not on the basis of merit but on the basis of money and power, then the interests of money and power will always be put first.

Or, to put it another way, campaign groups like pro-Palestine organisations have neither the professionalised influence networks of the corporate sector nor anything like the available resources to pursue their own interests. The inequality of access means inequality of information and that risks leading in turn to the inequality of policy outcomes.

This case is particularly concerning because what the companies concerned are lobbying over isn't the operation of democracy but the nature of democracy. They see the secret service as a private police force it is assumed will protect corporate interests and they are more than happy to push for the misapplication of terrorism legislation, again not for public safety but for corporate profit.

The insider consensus on lobbying is self-satisfied and a threat to the public good. There is no right in a democracy for money to buy access and the fact that you can afford an expensive lobbyist does not make your argument more just or your goals better aligned with the public interest.

We need a much stronger crackdown on lobbying. If the information that lobbyists provide is in the public interest, why is it not on the pubic record in real time? Why can we only find out the minimum possible about lobbying activity months after it has happened and often after the decisions being lobbied have been made?

There should be an assumption that evidence is heard in public, not private. And we should be free to assume that policy-makers are examining evidence from either side of a debate with equal rigour. Lobbying pretends to assist that process but is actually about thwarting it. When corporate interests seek to rewrite the rules of our democracy, we should all sit up and take notice.