One of the reasons that British democracy is failing, is because it’s not truly democratic. Money corrupts the system. All political parties are dependent on individual donations for their income. As inequality grows a few rich individuals become a party’s main source of income, vastly out-contributing ordinary members. Rich individuals tend to be right wing, often extremely right-wing. For example, the Guardian published an analysis of Reform’s income in the first three months of this year. It showed three individuals were responsible for 85% of their income. The most significant donor recently has been the donations of Christopher Harbourn, a Thai-based cryptocurrency billionaire. It is also significant that, being a right-wing party, Reform’s income was ahead of any other political party. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/04/reform-uk-raising-millions-more-than-other-parties-donation-figures-show
As a result, our democratic system is one in which policy can be highly influenced by a few individuals. No wonder the level of inequality is rising , as any political party will be reluctant to upset their major donors.
The excessive influence of money has to change if democracy is again going to work for all the people. George Monbiot in the Guardian proposed a scheme to overcome this.
https://www.monbiot.com/2026/05/03/get-the-money-out-of-politics/
There’s a simple way of sorting all this out. It works as follows. The only money a party can receive is a standard fee (say £25) for membership. The government then matches that fee on a fixed multiple. For instance, if you have 100,000 members each paying £25, and the multiple is three, your annual budget is £10m. And that’s it: no other sources permitted.
At a stroke, this sweeps away all the complexities of permissible and non-permissible donors, residence requirements, currency types, ultimate origins and spending caps. Instead of raising money, politicians would spend their time raising membership: reconnecting with the public and broadening their base. We would become equal political citizens, and our system would be transparent and intelligible. It would belong to us, not the billionaires.
There are plenty of other opportunities for the rich to influence political policy but this simple solution would make a huge change for the better.
