I’ve written a whole series of books that focus on localism and how the focus of power must be brought back to local communities and for decisions that affect our daily lives to be made as close to us as possible and by people who we know and can trust.
The problem that I have faced throughout, is that when talking about anything in a broader or national sense, it quickly becomes as abstract as national politics and national news streams are, even though that’s how we often judge important things to be.
The problem is real life and what is important to us isn’t abstract. In fact, the real things that are important and all the things that can have the biggest impact upon everything that is happening to us are not abstract and very specific indeed. But we have somehow allowed the abstract to influence all of our specific choices.
With AI and technologies now forcing their way into our digital lives, with consequences that will make real life feel so much easier, whilst teaching us to forget how making decisions for ourselves and even learning new things, the choice between being led by an abstract world where the real influences are never seen or understood, or taking back control and regaining conscious choice in everything that we do has never been such an easy one, whilst also being impossibly hard.
Yet the damage of centralisation, globalisation and of allowing decisions that affect everyone to be made by people who are unlikely to ever visit the Towns and Villages in which we live, or have reason to understand the things that are happening in our streets and neighbourhoods, are very easy for us to see in the news every night.
People who have zero understanding of the consequences and impact of the policies they write, for every reason other than those that they should be, are condemning increasing numbers of People to harder and more challenging lives. They then go on to blame the People whose lives they are wrecking for the problems that their own ignorance and incompetence have caused.
A genuinely self-sufficient and fully localised system of public services and the governance that underpins the systems and processes that affect and impact daily lives, would not be in danger of being abused or mismanaged in this way.
Indeed, the only way that we will be able to create a genuinely level playing field of opportunity and a public or community sector that works in the way that it should for everyone, will be for the full balance of power, influence and decision making to be brought back to the People and local communities.
Power must be administered openly, transparently and without any bias in the way that it always should. This can only be achivieved within a circuit or within the dynamics of a relationship where everyone playing a part is both accessible and known.
The most simple way to explain the change of focus from where it is today (Global, Central, European etc) to where it should be (Local, Community etc), is to think of it as being a switch from a values set based on money, profit and the accumulation of power and wealth, to the alternative values set which is focused on People, humanity and what we genuinely need for everyone to be happy, healthy, secure and safe.
Localism isn’t rocket science. But it certainly meets with a lot of resistance when the true depth and scope of what it means are openly discussed. Because for many who do so well out of exploiting others (whether they are aware of it or not), localism represents what they believe to be a loss.
Sadly, because the Establishment know and understand that local communities are where the power of the people and everything that supports us should be, they frequently pay lip service to the principle, but as in the case of New Labour’s ‘Devolution’ from the 1997 General Election on, and then the Cameron Conservatives ‘Localism’ in the years that have followed since 2010, the type of localism and the return of power to local people that politicians from all sides having been selling us, all add up to no such thing.
We face a challenging, but achievable course of action, that requires us, our communities, charities and businesses to by-pass the Establishment and begin putting localism into everything we do and are motivated by, if we genuinely want to solve all of the societal problems that not only our communities, but the Country and the whole world faces.
Adam Tugwell 