Britain’s in decline. Democracy has lost its way. Yes, many would squeal – but it’s no wonder so many of my generation believe it’s time for a dictator: CHARLIE DOWNES offers a provocative view_Nhy
Young people in the UK – born, like me, in the 21st century – are constantly told how lucky we are to have ‘freedom’.
To our parents and grandparents, steeped in the baggage of the Second World War, ‘freedom’ is the ultimate democratic right.
But many in Generation Z can see that our ‘free’ society has degenerated into instability and uncertainty.
If ‘freedom’ means being unable to afford a home, to live in overcrowded and overpriced rented accommodation, to work soulless jobs in order to pay sky-high taxes, and to have no sense of belonging or identity, perhaps freedom is not what we need.
So it’s no shock to read that a recent survey commissioned by Channel 4 found that 52 per cent of Britons aged 13 to 27 have lost faith in democracy and would welcome a dictator – a strong leader ‘who does not have to bother with parliament and elections’.
A third of my generation believe ‘the UK would be a better place if the Army was in charge’.
Other polls have found that many of us are likely to back the death penalty, while a Mail on Sunday survey this week found that two-thirds of us favour castrating sex offenders.
These reports have caused much alarm among liberal commentators – for whom democracy and the social contract are sacrosanct.
They don’t want to face the brutal truth that the social contract has been ripped up by a political class that has long refused to put the interests of ordinary British people first, or to deliver on our repeatedly expressed wishes at the ballot box – on immigration, crime, tax and much else.
Drug use, shoplifting and defrauding the state go unpunished. Millions of economically burdensome migrants from places and cultures vastly different from our own are invited in, housed and fed at our expense – and we are attacked and slurred as bigots if we complain.
As for democracy, it’s obvious from the visible decline in our country – which worsened after the 2008 financial crash and which has accelerated under Keir Starmer – that it isn’t delivering the right results.
In Starmer’s view, ‘the solution to every problem is a new committee’, writes Charlie Downes
Our supposed parliamentary rule is either an illusion, an anachronism or, if it does exist, clearly not fit for purpose.
After Labour’s landslide win last summer, it rapidly dawned on many of us who had voted for the first time that we were essentially politically impotent.
We had participated in the ritual of an election to change the public face of the state, but voting has not made a tangible difference beyond some tinkering on tax and spend.
It certainly hasn’t improved our lives, and we have no genuine means of shaping our collective future.
As a result, young people are realising that electoral politics is essentially theatre. Televised debates, Prime Minister’s Question Time, interviews with candidates on talk shows – it’s all performative.
The real business of running the country is done in back rooms, by a sprawling managerial state that rivals the worst of the Soviet Union.
It takes our money and spends it on self-perpetuation. Especially in Starmer’s view, the solution to every problem is a new committee – take the ‘Climate and Nature Assembly’ proposed in the Climate and Nature Bill, or the dozens of ‘task forces’ and ‘advisory councils’ set up since Labour took office.
Supposedly neutral institutions such as the Civil Service, the judiciary, the NGOs, the BBC, schools and universities and corporations and their HR departments all have the same worldview: an unmistakable left-wing agenda.
Ours is not a meaningful democracy. And that is why so many of us are looking elsewhere, writes Charlie Downes
From mass immigration to net zero and trans dogma, these institutions walk in ideological lockstep.
That is not a meaningful democracy. And that is why so many of us are looking elsewhere.
While I was studying for my degree, I earned my keep in the hospitality industry. Working for a small business owner, I saw how committed he was to making his restaurant work: his livelihood and his family’s future were staked on it.
Later, I took a job at a corporate chain where the managers treated their role as a professional obligation. They knew they could easily go elsewhere, and the business was less effective as a result.
Modern politicians are corporate managers.
What Britain needs is an owner.
To many, the word ‘dictatorship’ conjures images of cruelty and injustice. Yet I am far from alone in believing it is the current political class that is dragging us towards social breakdown, civil unrest – and worse.
And what is ‘just’ about that?
With Trump being re-elected in America, Canada’s Justin Trudeau resigning, the AfD surging in Germany and the National Rally of Marine Le Pen (pictured) doing the same in France, it is beginning to feel as if Britain is the last holdout of a dying order, writes Charlie Downes
Britain is crying out for leadership that can steer the country to safety.
Gen Z’s demands are not unreasonable: fairer taxes, affordable homes, cheaper energy and an end to unlimited immigration.
We ask that everyone contributes their fair share and that crime is properly punished.
We want to trust our neighbours, and talk to them in our own language. We want a sense of identity and belonging.
Which is why, I believe, we now need decisive action: a leader who would declare a state of emergency in response to illegal migration.
They must override the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European Court of Human Rights and enable the use of special powers for the mass deportation of more than 1.2million illegal immigrants currently estimated to be residing in Britain.
Such a leader must also reinstate the death penalty for those guilty of exceptionally heinous crimes, such as the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana.
They should also declare a tribunal to investigate and prosecute every individual involved in the rape grooming gangs.
They must pause all foreign aid, repeal all net zero measures, abolish ‘non-crime hate incidents’ and restore a proud sense of patriotism.
With Donald Trump being re-elected in America, Canada’s Justin Trudeau resigning, the AfD surging in Germany and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally doing the same in France, it is beginning to feel as if Britain under Labour is the last holdout of a dying order.
Without a strong leader who can reverse deindustrialisation, neoliberal economic policy and mass immigration, our country seems condemned to a future of being riddled with crime, political strife and social unrest.
Yet perhaps, out of this ongoing catastrophe, renewal will come.
History, after all, has a way of throwing up great men or women when the hour calls for them.
Yes, there would be outrage from some quarters – and many would squeal about the ‘death of democracy’. But young people in particular recognise that political leaders of all parties have made an abysmal mess of running things. No wonder so many believe it’s time for a radical alternative.
It sounds drastic – because it is drastic.
But otherwise we all face the continued rule of grey, miserable politicians with grey, miserable ideas, dragging us towards disaster.
And Gen Z will not tolerate that much longer.
