SUMMARY

Consumer activism is a potent force in British political life, which encompasses a network of non-governmental organisations, charities and campaigning groups. Its political style strongly resembles the approach of American citizen groups, and its activists have succeeded in projecting their lobbying operations as those of a social movement. Consumer activists insist they are marginalised outsiders who represent the voice of the powerless consumer. In fact, they have close links with the British Establishment and should be seen as key players who are strongly involved with the political elites. The success of this network is closely linked to a decline in trust in the British political system. Consumer activism thrives in the condition of apathy and social disengagement. Consumer activists regard their campaigns as a superior alternative to parliamentary democracy. Their attitude to political participation expresses a strong anti-democratic ethos.

Consuming Democracy

Consumers are on the march; complaining, campaigning and forcing large companies such as Shell, Monsanto and the Bank of Scotland on the defensive.
Consumer activism has succeeded in transforming the issue of food into one of the most high profile political issues facing British society. Although genetically modified foods have been the main target of a bitter environmentalist crusade, the entire food industry has become stigmatised by the claim that it puts profits before people’s safety. In the past two years, cars, mobile phones, electric cables, the Internet, computer screens, plastic toys, airline travel and baby walkers have been cast into the role of unacceptable health risks.

The new mood of consumer activism does not confine itself to an agenda of health and safety.
Public and private institutions face an unprecedented level of litigation as angry claimants demand not only compensation but a change in their mode of operation.
According to recent figures, complaints against doctors in Britain has trebled in the past five years. In June 1999, the Law Society announced that it would inject £5.7 million into its crisis hit complaints-handling system.
As a result of a big surge of complaints the Office for Supervision of Solicitors has a backlog of 17,000 complaints, which is also growing by 90 cases a week. During the past five years complaints in the gas industry are up by 48 per cent, in telecommunications, up by 178 per cent and in financial services up by 40 per cent. In 1991, fewer than 8,000 people complained to the Office of Fair Trading about their tour operator. Six years later, in 1997, this figure had nearly doubled to 14,000 complaints. This trend is not restricted to well known institutions. Organisations such as the Guild of Professional Beauty Therapists report a rise in ‘professional complainers’.

Consumer activism has gained formidable respectability in Britain. The Government is uniquely sensitive to lobbying by consumer advocacy groups. Faced with criticism from anti-GM food lobbyists, the Blair regime substantially modified its stance on the issue. Government ministers have sought to project themselves as the consumer’s champion. In July 1999, it launched a populist public relations campaign against ‘rip off’ Britain. Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has taken the lead in promoting this initiative. At the launch of this campaign, he remarked that many people "feel they are living in ‘rip off’ Britain". He painted a picture of a society where people are "paying high prices for shoddy goods, with cheats being allowed to prosper and move with ease from one scam to another" 1. Since, the summer of 1999, the Office of Fair Trading has adopted the image of a consumers’ crusading outfit.
It is worth noting that the sensitivity of ministers to consumer lobbying stands in sharp contrast to the relative failure of more traditional interest groups, like trade unions, to win concessions from the Government.

Consumer and environmentalist activism also enjoys an almost unprecedented degree of adulation in the media and public life. Campaigns against road building, live animal exports, the fast food chain Macdonald’s and trials of genetically modified foods are characteristically portrayed as heroic acts of responsible citizenship. Recently, the media depicted environmentalists who wrecked GM crop test sites as people’s Davids tackling giant American Goliaths. According to John Vidal, the environmental editor of The Guardian, "the ecological-inspired critique of democracy is now exploding and the crop pullers should be seen as part of an international movement that, thanks to email and the web, watchdog groups and increasing networking, is throwing up new issues, philosophies, ethics, and legal arguments" 2.
This representation of environmental activists as intellectual innovators, who are providing a morally exhausted society with priceless philosophical contribution is rarely interrogated. At every turn, environmental activists are praised for their altruism, social responsibility and moral outlook.

The obsequious relationship of the media to consumer and environmental activism is symbolised through its elevation of Swampy, aka Daniel Hooper, into a national hero for his role in the direct action campaign against road building. In January 1997, Swampy emerged as the last protester from a tunnel system built to obstruct the building of the A30 road near Exeter. He was immediately acclaimed by the media as a public hero. The Daily Mirror announced that 80 per cent of its readers supported Swampy’s protest The Daily Express dressed up this ‘human mole’ in an Armani suit and sought to transform him into a green icon. The new star was quickly embraced by the media. Appearances on popular television programmes soon followed and within weeks Swampy’s grubby, grinning visage was one of the most recognised faces in Britain.

The adoption of the cause of consumer activism by the current British political establishment raises interesting questions about its status as a movement. Consumer and environmental activists routinely attempt to portray themselves as disadvantaged radical outsiders who are continually battling against powerful vested interests. Environmental activists in particular, claim that they represent a disenfranchised public who lack any significant access to the political system. However, judging by the highly positive representation of these ‘outsiders’ by the mainstream media, one is forgiven for drawing the conclusion that this is very much a movement led by insiders.

To take the example of the campaign against GM foods. This campaign has been endowed with considerable respectability by Prince Charles, who declared last year that the "genetic modification of crops is taking mankind into realms that belong to God, and to God alone". Key institutions of the British Establishment, such as the Federation of Women’s Institutes have joined Greenpeace, the Consumers’ Association and over 70 other consumer, environment and other groups in calling for a freeze on testing GM seeds. Far from being powerless outsiders, it is evident that campaigners such as this enjoy a privileged relationship with the people that matter in Britain. Consumer activism exercises considerable influence over the media and the intelligentsia and enjoys a mutually profitable relationship with Britain’s political class.

The New Insiders

Consumer and environmental groups, advocacy organisations and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) regularly participate in the Government's network of review groups and task forces. Since May 1997, New Labour has launched hundreds of these government reviews. According to one account, this initiative "has stretched the resources of even the most well-endowed pressure group as they strive to keep up with all the new opportunities" 3. Organisations like the Consumer's Association and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) have achieved a semi-official status and participate in dozens of consultative committees. Consumer organisations and advocacy groups are seen by officials and politicians as key allies in policy making. The representatives of such groups are often presented as neutral experts, who represent the interests of the public. They are usually portrayed as 'independent' and their legitimate public concerns are often favourably contrasted with the narrow vested interests of business and the unions.

ASH has successfully linked up its anti-smoking campaign to official initiatives on public health. It is regularly invited to front official health initiatives. Its campaign for an official investigation into the activities of tobacco companies led to the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry in June 1999. For its part, the current Government uses ASH's reports as semi-official evidence to promote its policies. Junior health minister, Tessa Jowell, used the ASH report demanding an inquiry as the basis for a press release condemning the tobacco industry. The integration of ASH into the public health establishment suggests that the line between consumer activists and officialdom has become increasingly blurred.

The anti-tobacco pressure groups have been fighting their battle against the noxious weed for many decades, far longer than most other consumer activists. They therefore provide a tried-and-tested model of advocacy group-government collaboration.
In many countries and at the international level, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the anti-tobacco groups and the government health departments they influence.
For example, the Canadian No-Smoker's Rights Association last year had a budget of just over one million Canadian dollars of which about 75% came from Government grants. In short, the NSRA receives money to 'educate' the public about the dangers of smoking and lobby for the regulations that will be implemented by the same Government Department that approves the grant. As Terence Corcoran argues, the NSRA and many anti-tobacco groups are not actually non-governmental organisations, but GONGOs, Government Organised Non-Governmental Organisations 4.

Furthermore, environmental organisations receive most of their money from donations. But the ratio is altering in the larger ones, such as Greenpeace, who are moving closer to the anti-tobacco pressure groups in funding structure - relying on substantial intergovernmental grants, such as from the UN, allegedly for research purposes.

The ascendancy of consumer activism in Britain and its institutionalisation near the heart of the political system, parallels important developments in the United States. A recently published study by Jeffrey Berry; The New Liberalism; The Rising Power of Citizen Groups, provides compelling evidence of the rise of the powerful and well-financed ‘citizen lobby groups’. According to Berry, these groups have had a major impact in altering the American political agenda and in shaping the way that business is conducted on Capitol Hill. Berry contends, that these groups express a brand of new liberalism which is oriented towards ‘quality-of-life issues’ such as consumer affairs, environmentalism and good government. Motivated by ‘postmaterial values’ (that is, by non-material concerns), these groups reflect the affluence of American society, according to Berry.

Berry has noted that this rise of consumerism coincides with declining interest in the issue of economic equality and sympathy for the poor.
According to Berry, the new liberalism appeals principally to an upper middle class suburban constituency.
As a result, it can access a level of funding not available to either labour advocates or promoters of right wing populist causes, whose appeal is primarily to people of more modest means.
He remarks, that paradoxically, "it is the citizen groups of the right , and not of the left who are more attuned to the interests of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder" 5.
Berry concedes that new liberalism’s stress on quality of life issues "has certainly left them open to the charge of elitism", but he believes that their ‘post-materialist’ politics represents the wave of the future.

Berry’s research provides a detailed account of the influence of these groups on the legislative process.
In the sixties, most domestic economic and social legislation coming before House and Senate dealt with the allocation of economic resources, and only around a third of the bills dealt with quality-of-life issues, such as consumer or environmental concerns. By 1991, this pattern was fundamentally altered. Something like 71 per cent of all congressional hearings that year took up legislation based around quality-of-life, concerns whilst economic issues occupied just 29 per cent of the domestic legislation. There is little doubt that in-depth research would also reveal a discernible shift by the British Parliament towards quality-of-life concerns.

At least in part, the success of American liberal citizen groups is due to the considerable resources that they wield. It is worth noting that liberal citizen groups often convey the impression that they are poor compared with the rich conservative right.
"Liberals speak in terror of the resources available to the groups on the right", observes Berry. Yet, these appearances are deceptive since on Berry’s three criteria - visibility, credibility and funding, "the liberal lobbies are far better off than competing conservative groups" 6. Many of these organisations possess considerable resources. Numerous environmental groups have budgets in the tens of millions of dollars and have large staffs of lawyers, PhDs and expert lobbyists.
This network of affluent activists and lobbyists has succeeded in establishing an important position of authority comparable to that achieved by consumer activists in Britain.
It is also worth noting, that Europe-wide advocacy groups also possess considerable financial muscle. They play an active role around the proceedings in Brussels. A 1996 survey found that European-wide interest advocacy groups "tend to have more permanent staff and higher budgets than the more numerous business lobbying groups" 7.

The association of citizen groups with economic and social privilege is also evident in the British situation. A recent study extolling the virtues of these ‘post-materialist’ associations notes that "for the most part, political activism and the associational life that sustains it have remained middle-class phenomena in Britain" 8. This study paints a picture of a Britain, where the network of voluntary associations cater to the needs of the affluent section of society. The author of the study observes that Britain is a "nation divided between a well-connected and highly-active group of citizens with generally prosperous lives, and another set of citizens whose associational life and involvement in politics are very limited" 9.
Consumer activism in Britain remains very much an elite project and its claim to represent the forces of powerless outsiders is belied by it privileged social status.

There is little point in speculating about whether the leaders of consumer activism are cynical, or whether they actually believe in constituting a movement of disenfranchised outsiders. They probably possess the conviction that they represent a movement from below, which is not tainted by vested interest and is independent from the established political class. The belief that they are motivated by the public good informs their political style. It also invests their political project with the sanctimony of selfless altruism.
Whatever its motives, consumer activism has managed to project an image that contrasts favourably with the squalid reputation of party politics. It has succeeded in winning a reputation for its selflessness and its ability to rise above disreputable adversarial politics.
The claim that its inherents ‘are not doing this for themselves’ and that they are not interested in material rewards is widely accepted by media commentators.
Television and radio programmes regularly feature consumer activists in order to give ‘independent comment’. This image also prevails in the US. As Berry points out, "citizen groups stand out, of course, because many of them are able to present themselves as free of self-interest, while business, labour, and professional groups are commonly perceived as having a selfish interest in the issues they pursue" 10.

The intellectual advocates of consumer activism believe that this movement represents a dynamic constructive force, with a capacity to renew the political and social life of Western societies. The well known German sociologist, Ulrich Beck, has argued forcefully that the ‘sub politics’, or grassroots citizen groups, possess the capacity to re-route an exhausted political system in an enlightened direction 11.

Consumer activists and legal advocates claim that the growth of complaining and litigating represents a positive sign that people are standing up for themselves and refusing to defer to powerful institutions. Roger Smith, director of the Legal Action Group argues that "high litigation rates may well be a sign of an active citizenry, prepared to be vigilant as to their rights". 12. Advocates of consumerist politics contend that their success is due to the fact that the public has become more educated, more informed and more insistent on upholding its rights.

Berry too, believes that new liberalism represents the standpoint of an educated public that is more aware of its rights. He believes that the success of this movement is "the mark of a system that is open, democratic, and responsive to its citizens". 13. Maybe. However, in his enthusiasm for the new liberalism, Berry overlooks one very important development.
The rise of citizen lobbying groups is paralleled by a major decline in the participation of the American people in the electoral process. It seems that, for a small minority, citizen activism is inextricably linked to the political disenfranchisement of large sections of American society.
There is considerable evidence that consumer and legal activism are symptomatic, not of active citizenry, but of a far more disturbing process: a decline of social trust and in civic and social engagement. It appears that apathy and a decline in political participation, rather than a renaissance of citizen activism, is the precondition for the growth of consumer politics. The coincidence of citizen activism with a decline in political participation throws serious doubt on the claim that the Western public has become unusually politically educated and socially aware.

Social Disengagement

Contemporary Western societies are afflicted by a profound sense of political malaise. Although there is disagreement about its proximate causes, there is a general consensus that political institutions face a major problem of legitimacy. Traditional forms of party politics, political values and identities have little purchase on an evidently disenchanted public. Popular mistrust of authority is confirmed by the growing alienation of people from the system of elections. American style voting apathy has become a fact of life in Europe where a significant proportion of the electorate believes that voting is a waste of time.

Increasingly, every election threatens to become an embarrassing reminder of the political wasteland that we inhabit. Apathy is no longer an adequate term of description for the steady erosion of the public’s involvement in the political life of the United States. Since 1960, voter participation has steadily declined in almost every presidential election. Overall, the percentage of the electorate voting in presidential elections declined from 62.5 per cent in 1960 to 50.1 per cent in 1988. By the time of the last election, in 1996, only 49 per cent of the voting age population bothered to cast their ballots. Voter participation in presidential elections appears high compared with the ballots cast for candidates running for a seat in the House of Representatives. These have averaged around 35 per cent in the nineties.

European commentators can no longer feel smug about the so called political illiteracy of the American electorate. A leader in The Guardian titled ‘Don’t yawn for Europe. Apathy must not win the elections’, written prior to the June 1999 elections indicated that public disenchantment with political life is no longer confined to the other side of the Atlantic. In Britain, the facts speak for themselves. It is worth recalling that in 1997, New Labour was backed by only 31 per cent of those qualified to vote. Voter turnout at this election was the lowest since 1945. "The 1997 general election excited less interest than any other in living memory" concluded the authors of a Nuffield College study of this event. Even the highly hyped public relations campaign surrounding devolution in Scotland and Wales failed to engage the public’s interest. Voter participation in these ‘history making’ elections in 1999 indicated that the public regarded it as yet another stage-managed event. The majority of Welsh electorate stayed at home - only 46 per cent of them bothered to vote. In Scotland, a high profile media campaign designed to promote voter participation, led to a 59 per cent turnout. And on the same day, polling booths in England attracted only 29 per cent of registered voters for the 6 May local elections. The June 1999 UK elections to the European Parliament represented an all time record low. Only 23 per cent turned out to vote. In one polling station in Sunderland, only 15 people turned up out of the 1,000 entitled to vote.

The response of political elite to the collapse of public participation is characteristically naive and technical. The most widely canvassed solution is based on the premise that if elections can be reorganised around public disengagement from politics, the rate of participation can be increased. This approach favours making voting easier. Setting up polling booths in supermarkets is one idea. Others have proposed a system of postal or electronic voting. Such technical solutions are not designed to invigorate public life, but to improve appearances. It seems that a quantitative increase in voter participation is the sole objective of these proposals. Sadly, what these technical approaches fail to realise is that the reason why people don’t vote is not because they are extremely busy or because they can’t find the polling booth. Public disengagement from politics reflects the widespread conviction that politics simply does not matter and that most institutions have little bearing on their lives.

The steady decline of voter participation is only a symbol of a much wider process at work. Lack of participation provides a clear index of disillusionment and public mistrust in the existing political system. Surveys of American public attitudes indicate that approval of the Government has steadily declined in recent decades. Whereas in 1958, over 75 per cent of the American people trusted their government to do the right thing, only 28.2 percent could express a similar sentiment in 1990. Since the beginning of this decade trust in politicians has continued to decline. The 1996 ‘In a State of Disunion ‘ survey conducted by the Gallup Organization found that 64 per cent of the respondents had little or no confidence that government officials tell the truth. Surveys in Europe point to a similar pattern. Studies carried out in the European Union indicate that around 45 per cent of the population is dissatisfied with the ‘way that democracy works’. In Britain, surveys reveal a high level of public cynicism towards politicians. A Gallup poll conducted in April 1995 found that more than half of British people regarded the honesty and ethical standards of Members of Parliament as 'low' or 'very low'. A decade previously, only a third had adopted this view. According to another survey, carried out in 1994, only 24 per cent of the population believed that the British government places the national interest above their party interests 14. Politicians consistently come bottom of the list of professions the public trusts. A survey published by the ICM in June 1999 found that only ten per cent of the respondents stated that they trust politicians a lot, sixty-five per cent a little, and twenty five per cent indicated not at all 15.

During the nineties, the erosion of public trust was reflected in a national mood of suspicion towards the political system itself. What emerged was a brand of anti-politics, a cyclical dismissal of the elected politician and an obsession with sleaze and corruption in Westminster. New Labour’s success in portraying the Conservatives as a party of sleaze was crucial to its electoral success of 1997. In turn, the New Labour Government soon discovered that it too was vulnerable to scandals. Within months of being elected, the New Labour Government was hit by a spate of minor scandals involving Labour MPs and ministers. The issue of sleaze continued to haunt the Government as successive ministers were forced to resign in 1998.

Widespread cynicism towards political authority is paralleled by a loss of support for most forms traditional values. Mattetei Dogan’s study ‘The Decline of Traditional Values in Western Europe’, published in 1998 provides compelling evidence that there is a steady erosion of belief in religion, nationalism and trust in authority in all parts of this region. In some societies, - Belgium and Italy - suspicion of political institutions is intense, while in Britain, the reaction is characteristically that of indifference 16.

The exhaustion of political life has little to do with political corruption, inept political leaders or insensitive bureaucracies. What has changed during the past two decades is the very meaning of politics itself. At the beginning of this century, political life was dominated by radically different alternatives. Competing political philosophies offered contrasting visions of the good society. Conflict between these ideologies was often fierce and sometimes provoked violent clashes and even revolutions. ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ were no mere labels. In a fundamental sense, they endowed individuals with an identity that said something very important about how they regarded their lives. Ardent advocates of revolutionary change clashed with fervent defenders of the capitalist system. Their competing views about society dominated the conduct of every day politics.

The political emotions at end of the century differ radically the passions and conflicts that shaped people’s commitments and hatreds at the beginning. It appears that there is no longer room for either the ardent defender of the free market faith, or the robust advocate of revolutionary transformation. It would be wrong to conclude that politics has become simply more moderate, more that it has gone into early retirement. The end-of-century ethos emphasises problems which are not susceptible to human intervention. Theories of globalisation stress the inability of people and their nation states to deal with forces beyond their control. The big issues of our time -impending environmental catastrophes, threats to our health , millennium bugs - are presented as perils that stand above politics. It is widely feared that the world is out of control and there is little that human beings can do to master these developments or influence their destiny. Deprived of choice and options, humanity is forced to acquiesce to a common world view.

And if indeed there is no alternative, politics can have little meaning. Without alternatives, debate becomes empty posturing about trivial matters. Politicians are forced to inflate relatively banal proposals to the level of a major policy innovation. This failure of the political imagination is the inexorable outcome of a culture steeped in consensus. New Labour’s quantitatively impressive legislative programme - devolution, abolishing the House of Lords, new system of election, Freedom of Information Act - is driven by the impulse to be seen to be doing something. But in the absence of debate about fundamentals, such innovations have an entirely managerial and technical character. The Government’s proposal during the summer of 1999, to teach citizenship to school students is a testimony to this managerial ethos. Public disenchantment has little to do with poor schooling. Without alternatives, politics fails to engage, involve and inspire. In this context citizenship can only mean acceptance of passivity and of the values dreamt up by the latest coterie of spin doctors. It is not surprising that the Government’s proposed programme of citizenship classes has been met by an underwhelming response from students. A survey carried out in March 1999, among children between the age of 11 to 16, indicated that whereas 48 per cent of them wanted to have more lessons in how to manage their money only 28 per cent were interested in covering politics in more detail.

The emergence of a managerial style of pragmatic governance has helped transform parliamentary politics into a tedious irrelevance. In July, a report published by the Hansard Society confirmed that Parliament is disappearing from the television screens and that MPs get hardly any airtime. The growing irrelevance of parliamentary politics is most clearly reflected in the transformation of the BBC1’s Question Time from a forum of political debate to an inane programme where comedians, celebrities and other political illiterates hold forth on subjects about which they know very little. The editor defended the decision to replace MPs with comedians by arguing that celebrities could help bring politics to a wider audience. When second rate celebrities are charged with bringing politics to a wider audience, one is entitled to ask what has politics become?

The disappearance of the eloquent politician from the screens is matched by the demise of the so-called core voter. The number of people who passionately identify with one or another political party has shrunk. Traditionally, the Labour core vote was forged around issues to do with redistribution and welfare, while those around the Tories were inspired by maintenance of law and order and limited economic intervention. Today, both parties have shed their ideological baggage and self consciously distance themselves from any distinct ideological views. The absence of precisely those sentiments which excited commitment and forged the core vote, has created a situation where a large chasm has opened up between political parties and the electorate.

The paradox of consumer activism coinciding with an unprecedented level of social disengagement has been noted by numerous political observers.
Unfortunately, a growing number of commentators now believe that consumer activism represents a democratic alternative to party politics and electoral participation.
It has been suggested that consumer lobbying organisations are giving the people a voice and are training a new generation of active citizens.
Some have even gone so far as to portray consumer activism as superior to traditional forms of political involvement. “Consumers, not voters make a difference”, writes Noreena Hertz in The New Statesman. Hertz believes that politicians should learn from the experience of consumer activism and ought to begin to treat the electorate as if they were their customers. “Politics is dead - long live the consumer”, enthuses Hertz.

A group of influential academics now argue that participation in voluntary organisations, consumer and environmental groups override the effects of public apathy.
In an influential study, ‘Social Capital in Britain’, Peter Hall suggests that although the British polity has become less trusting in the 1990s, the process “does not seem to have impoverished it”. As evidence, he cites the “political image of Swampy”, who he claims provides for the young “a model of political engagement” 17. This celebration of Swampy “the countercultural hero of environmentalists’ battles against superhighways” is driven by the conviction that episodic acts of protest represent a plausible alternative to participation in the wider political process.

Intellectual proponents of postmaterialist activism go so far as to refute the idea that society is afflicted by the scourge of apathy and social engagement. The success of consumer activism is interpreted as a positive reorientation of the public from the irrelevance of formal politics to more meaningful forms of engagement.
Anthony Giddens, a leading proponent of the Blairite ideology of The Third Way rejects the view that the erosion of the public’s participation in traditional political institutions represents a problem. He believes that “diminished trust in politicians and other authority figures” may actually represent a positive development, since it reflects an increasingly “reflexive society” marked by “high levels of self-organization” 18. This attempt to invest voluntary associations with a progressive mission overlooks one crucial problem, which is that these groups engage a far fewer individuals than even the existing discredited political institutions. While the emergence of local civic organisations can play a useful role in contributing to the development of a society’s political culture, it is unlikely that they can compensate for the effects of the public’s disengagement from national political life. As the next section argues, the very success of consumer activism depends on perpetuating the existing level of political mistrust.

The Question of Trust

In reality, consumer activism is symptomatic of a profound process of atomisation that dominates British society and politics. In the past, consumer activism was not flattered with the description of social activism. It was characterised as what it still is - professional lobbying. Charities and advocacy organisations were often involved in the honourable business of raising public awareness of important social issues. Through briefing opinion makers in the media and political life, they sought to influence officialdom and Parliament. Often their work possessed considerable merit. However these organisations did not see themselves as constituting a movement, nor claim to be the voice of the people. They were in the business of advocating opinions which were confined to their ranks. Their aim was to gain a wider audience through influencing influential opinion makers. This was a self-consciously chosen, top down approach which rarely sought to mobilise people beyond the dominant network of opinion makers, officials, politicians and other professionals.

Today, consumer and environmental organisations have adopted a more ambitious profile for themselves. This shift is most strikingly illustrated in the transformation of consumer advocacy. Consumer groups have moved from being fringe organisations whose main aim was the comparative testing of products, to become a powerful mainstream lobby which is widely portrayed as representing the voice, views and aspirations of the general public in their role as consumers of commodities and services in society.
Consequently, organisations like the Consumer Association now claims a representative role for itself. Unlike immodest environmental activists who claim to speak on behalf of the people, the Consumer Association has a more restrained conception of its representative role. It makes a distinction between ‘citizen interests’ and a more short term and narrower ‘consumer interests’. Its claim to the role of representation is a relatively modest one 19. It is the voice of the consumer and not of the British people. Nevertheless, this shift from lobbying to a representative status reflects an important expansion in the role of consumerism.

There is little doubt that the growth of consumer activism is bound up with the decline of traditional forms of political participation and social engagement. The question worth probing is whether this trend is merely a symptom of social disengagement or whether consumer activism also reinforces the widening distance of the British public from engaging with political life.

The growing respect accorded to consumer activism is proportional to the decline of public trust in conventional authority. Growing public mistrust afflicts many sectors of society. For better or worse, no institution, not even the Church, is immune from growing public suspicion 20. Widespread disenchantment with conventional institutions has created an opening for new, alternative forms of authority. The main beneficiary of this process has been consumer activism, which has been able to promote itself as a credible, alternative source of authority. Consumerism is built on the perception that it is not possible to believe the words of politicians, business people, scientists and other traditional authority figures. Consumer organisations recognise that the growth of their influence is rooted in the expansion of public mistrust. The Consumer Association, for example, justifies its case for consumer representation on the ground of “low levels of consumer trust in the decision making process” 21.

Since the status of consumer activism is so much bound up with prevailing perceptions of mistrust, it is inevitable that many of its leaders find it difficult to resist the temptation of manipulating this mood for their own end. Jeffrey Berry concludes that citizen action groups in the US have won considerable credibility because “they have skilfully exploited the public’s distrust of interest groups in general and business in particular” 22. Exploiting public mistrust is an understandable ploy of activists, whose authority depends on the maintenance of suspicion towards formal institutions of authority. That is why the promotion of mistrust constitutes the defining theme of the message of consumer activism.

Contemporary society is hospitable to claims which warn about a wide variety of dangers and risks that threaten society. Alarmist warnings about unprecedented threats continually fuel the perception of mistrust. Panics about children's safety, various forms of abuse, new technology, health and food products have become routine.
Such panics can be of short duration. For example, in Belgium in June 1999 anxieties about health risks associated with Coca Cola led to the withdrawal of 30 million cans and bottles. But within a few weeks it became evident that it was an explosion of mass hysteria - the ‘health effects’ were all in the mind and the panic died. Other panics, for example Satanic ritual abuse, can influence people’s actions for much longer. One of the distinguishing feature of society today is that panics tend to follow one another in quick succession and attach themselves to an ever growing range of subjects. This atmosphere of fear has created a situation where warnings about the possible risk of a new technology is far more likely to be believed than the reassurance of an expert authority. In these circumstances the mood of ‘better safe than sorry’ provides consumer activists with considerable opportunities.

It would be wrong to suggest that consumer activists set out to dishonestly exploit people’s fears and mistrust. In most cases, they genuinely believe that politicians, business people, scientists and other professionals cover up the truth. Environmental and consumer activists hold deep convictions that new products and technologies are likely to be unsafe and that they must make society aware of the multitude of dangers it faces. Their activities are borne from this conviction and they believe that their insight entitles them to spread the gospel of mistrust. Encouraging people to mistrust, complain and litigate is seen as a socially responsible act. Consequently, consumer advocates do not merely reflect the existing state of mistrust, they play an active role in educating people to believe the worst in most circumstances. They do not simply articulate the complaints of the powerless but also attempt to extend the constituency of potential complainers.

In Britain, the complaint revolution did not emerge from grassroots but was driven by a new industry of complaint advocates, who are dedicated towards winning new converts. In recent years, various reports have addressed what their authors perceive as a need to ‘raise public awareness’ about the fact that too few people complain about poor services. For example, a recent report by the National Consumer Council includes a section headed: ‘Why Don’t You Complain?’ 23. Consumer organisations and many legal professionals now assert that complaining is, by definition, a positive and constructive act of civic responsibility because it can alter and improve the way services are provided to others in the future. It also happens to expand the demand for consumer and legal representation.

Advocacy groups, consumers’ organisations and legal activists are also in the forefront of promoting the culture of compensation. A leaflet published by The Accident Line, an organisation launched to raise public awareness by the Law Society directly encourages people to look for someone to blame for their predicament.

‘IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT...OR WAS IT?
Even if you believe that your injury was just an accident, and that no-one was to blame, it’s still worth talking to a specialist solicitor. Many people who believed at first that their accident could not be blamed on anyone but themselves, have gone on to make a successful claim’.

The leaflet assures the reader that “sometimes you don’t even realise that someone or something else is to blame”. Encouraging blaming and complaining is increasingly presented as a service to the public, and the litigant is now often depicted as an active citizen standing up for his or her rights. Sadly, it is also often presented as a viable alternative to political participation.

The appeal of litigation to consumer activism is not accidental. General experience suggests that the rise of litigation is an expression of a decline in trust, which breeds suspicion between people, and between individuals and institutions. Trust in authority and the extension of law exist in an inverse relationship. Although there is nothing wrong in complaining and even litigating, when recourse to the law becomes routine, there is little incentive to evolve trusting relationships. Through advocating legal solutions, consumer activists, either consciously or inadvertently, encourage people to intensify their mistrust of others.

Every healthy society benefits from scepticism and the refusal to accept unearned authority. And no doubt there are good reasons why so many traditional institutions have experienced a decline of their status. In many cases they bear direct responsibility for the erosion of their authority. However, whilst critically questioning the relevance of these institutions is an exercise in democratic accountability, an uncritical celebration of mistrust can only help breed passive cynicism. Cynicism leads nowhere, certainly not to political renewal. Since consumer activism thrives on mistrust, it is difficult to understand how it can contribute to the kind of political renewal claimed for it by its intellectual supporters. Such a standpoint draws succour from the failure of the existing political institutions rather than from a constructive vision of how society should be run. Its authority rests on undermining trust in competing institutions rather than on its own accomplishments.

An oligarchic network

Social disengagement and depoliticisation represent the foundation for consumer activism. The erosion of civic solidarity and the growth of individuation has created a climate where shopping appears to have more meaning then democratic participation. And precisely because professional politicians appear discredited, lobbyists can demand a new role for themselves. Consequently, a space has opened up for the activities of advocacy groups, charities and non governmental organisations to act as the voice of the people. No longer subservient lobbyists, they can claim the role of representatives of popular interest. For an otherwise isolated political class, advocacy groups provide an important point of contact with the public. What New Labour strategists call the ‘politics of inclusion’ usually means bringing on board the representatives of a vast number of advocacy groups. “Those who used to shout the loudest now find themselves invited in for tea and biscuits while their wildest ideas are given a polite hearing”, observes Alan Travis, the Guardian’s home affairs editor 24. Campaigners are consulted and made to feel that they have some influence over the outcome of policy making.

The new cosy relationship benefits politician and campaigner alike. What consumer activists gain is a privileged access to key official institutions. Many of them have been integrated into the network of consultative committees that the Government uses to test out its policies. Many lobbyist have been directly co-opted into Parliament, where they constitute a significant portion of the new generation of MPs. The political class also profits from this symbiotic relationships. Their deliberation with advocacy groups helps create the impression that genuine consultation has taken place. As long as political lethargy continues to prevail, consumer activism will be accorded a special status by officialdom. Why? Because the activism of the civic lobbyist allows Britain’s political class to retain a semblance of accountability.

During the past decade, successive governments have actively encouraged volunteering and have increasingly sought to use non-governmental organisations to deliver services. In recent years, NGOs have become more and more integrated into the delivery of foreign aid, while charities and advocacy groups have been given new opportunities to play an active role in the provision of social services. According to one account, New Labour is likely to increase the £500 million of public money it gives to the not-for-profit sector in the area of social services 25. As matters stand, the heads of the larger, influential charities have already joined the new political oligarchy and play an active role in policy making. In the EU, this pattern of official and semi-official collaboration is far more institutionalised.
Nearly 10 per cent of the EU budget is devoted to the funding of advocacy groups with a European outlook, and environmental groups “now have an institutionalised role as suppliers of policy data and advice” to the European Commission 26.

Official support for consumer activism is based on the belief that these organisations have a special privileged access to the public. Politicians and officials hope that their association with advocacy groups will endow their policy making with greater credibility. Official patronage of advocacy groups represents an attempt to mitigate the effects of the loss of legitimacy previously enjoyed by the political class.

Consumer activism is the activism of small numbers of professional advocates of a bewildering variety of causes. It is the activism of traditional pressure group politics. But in the absence of a healthy political environment, such pressure group politics are able to acquire unprecedented momentum and gain considerable public profile. During the past twenty years the network of British advocacy organisations have evolved a division of labour between respectable lobbying organisations like the Consumers’ Association and campaigning organisations like Friends of the Earth as well as formally unaffiliated protesters. Protests over issues like animal experimentation and road building are important in helping to transform the image of pressure group politics into organisations that can claim the status of a movement. Whereas in the past, many voluntary organisations and charities preferred to keep a low profile, today the maintenance of an active image lends weight to the authority of an advocacy organisation.

The activism of consumer politics should not be confused with the activism sought by traditional social movements in the past. Unlike traditional social movements, lobbying groups are not interested in mobilising popular support per se. Campaigns organised by consumer activists are primarily media events designed to gain the maximum publicity. These campaigns are essentially public relations exercises oriented towards stimulating the interest of the media. The significance which advocacy groups, NGOs and campaigning groups attach to publicity is motivated by the realisation that their influence is intimately linked to their public profile. Indeed, it is their ability to gain profile which determines the degree of influence they can exercise over officialdom. Consequently, the machinery of consumer activism is single mindedly oriented towards gaining publicity through the media. A large active membership is quite unnecessary for an organisation devoted towards oiling the network of Britain’s political oligarchy. Contacts in the media and friends in influential places are far more important than tens of thousands of active supporters. Even when consumer activists take direct action, what counts is the presence of the television cameras. There is little point in protesting or demonstrating if it does not gain publicity for the group concerned. From this perspective, an act is deemed to be effective if it makes the news. It does not matter whether anything has been achieved on the ground, publicity is all that counts. The typical Greenpeace stunt involving a small core of professional protesters, whose appearance is carefully crafted for the maximum dramatic effect, is emblematic of the political theatre of consumer activism.

For its part, the media has tended to uncritically embrace the consumer activist. They are the good guys. Unlike politicians, they are not tainted by corruption or self interest. They are typically portrayed as altruistic and idealistic people whose motives are beyond reproach. The media’s celebration of consumer activism reflects a wider Establishment consensus about the semi-official status of this movement. In all but name the leadership of this informal network of non-governmental organisations has become integrated into the new Establishment. As Kevin Dunion, the Scottish director of Friends of the Earth boasted, after becoming the first eco-warrior to receive an OBE, “There is now an alternative establishment that is being listened to”. He added that he was “very pleased that Prince Charles made the presentation, as he is a fellow environmentalist” 27. This ‘alternative establishment’ extends from the British aristocracy to representatives of Cool Britannia in the media.

On any day of the week, the media will interview representatives of consumers, single parents, the disabled, children and a variety of other interests. The interviewer will often refer to these individuals as the representative of the consumer or of the single parent. There is the automatic assumption that the head of a particular advocacy group has the moral authority to speak on behalf of everyone he or she claims to represent. The question of how, say, the Consumer Association gained the right to speak on behalf of millions of British consumers is rarely posed. Were they elected by Britain’s consumers? Did they gain their mandate from heaven? I know that I am consumer. I also know that although the Consumer’s Association speaks on my behalf, I have never been consulted about my opinions on the subject.

The emergence of a new oligarchy of semi-official organisations, which have not been elected by the public but which claim to represent its voice, raise some disturbing questions about the question of democratic accountability.

The small issue of democracy

As part of the British oligarchy, consumer activists have a mandate to promote their cause through means not usually available to other movements. Anyone who recalls how protesting miners were treated by the police during the 1985 strike, will be struck by the gentle camaraderie that the forces of law and order have adopted against protest organised by consumer activists.
Anti-road protesters and demonstrators against live animal exports never had to contend with the level of repression experienced by the miners. I have seen anti-hunt saboteurs, who have spat and physically attacked their opponents, treated by the police as if they were naughty children.
And anti GM-food protesters who destroy the hard work of others, are often portrayed as if they have divine right on their side since they exist on a higher moral plane to the rest of society.

There was a time when direct action and protest was systematically denounced as subversive by the media. As a sixties student activist, I do not recall newspaper articles commenting favourably on our direct action. Denounced as ‘dirty scum’, radical activists were portrayed as a threat to society. Contrast this typical media reaction to sixties direct action with the way consumer activists are portrayed today. Anti-road protesters are treated with the kind of indulgence that one usually reserves for one’s grandchildren, and like Swampy, portrayed as some kind of underground Mother Theresa.

There is a fundamental difference between the tradition of direct action and the media driven protest of consumer activism. The aim of direct action was to mobilise people in order to shift the balance of power in society. Consumer activism is not about people gaining power for themselves. It is about ‘empowering them’ through the benevolent acts of others. It involves small groups of activists who see themselves as acting on people’s behalf. The principal aim of this sort of initiative is not popular mobilisation but the exercise of influence over the media and influential people in the political oligarchy.

Consumer activism is nevertheless, highly respectable. It also has a semi-official mandate to break the law. Anti-GM food protesters are often represented as idealist young people, who are acting on our behalf. As part of the British political oligarchy, they have the kind of freedom to protest that is usually denied to ordinary mortals. When, Lord Melchett, the aristocratic leader of Greenpeace, was recently arrested for criminal damage and theft, he was genuinely shocked by his treatment. As far as he was concerned, his action was a “direct expression of ‘people’s power’”. As the self-appointed voice of the British people, Greenpeace represented its action as an exercise in ‘active citizenship’ which “keeps democracy healthy and responsive”.

Meltchett, like many other leading consumer activists, possesses a highly elitist notion of democracy. It is driven by the conviction that if they believe that something is wrong, then waiting for an unresponsive political system to do something about it is a luxury that society cannot afford. Professional environmental protesters assume that they have the moral authority to take matters into their own hands since they are acting on behalf of the People. They believe that their unique philosophical insights entitles them to act in accordance with their ideology, irrespective of its legal implications. Stokely Webster, another protester involved in destroying GM test crops, explained her involvement in the following terms:

I was doing a PhD in environmental ethics before I joined environmental groups and eventually the Greenpeace staff this year. I was asked if I wanted to join the direct action against the government’s GM crop in Norfolk and I had no hesitation. It was open and accountable, the clear intention was to stop imminent pollution 28.

Webster’s explanation of her role is symptomatic of a profoundly elitist notion of accountability. Her claim that her action, resulting in the destruction of other people’s work, was “open and accountable” represents an exercise in linguistic acrobatics. Who was she open and accountable to? To her colleagues working at Greenpeace? To some wider protest movement? The British people? In reality, these questions need not even be posed by protesters whose “clear intention was to stop imminent pollution”. From, the standpoint of professional protesters, honourable intentions provide a moral licence to do whatever they think is necessary.

One of the key arguments used by consumer activists to justify their mandate to break the law, is that the British political system is not really democratic, and is unresponsive to the demands of ordinary people. Doug Parr, the campaigns director of Greenpeace UK agues that the public have made their views on GM foods absolutely clear and that his organisation is merely acting on the expressed will of the people. So how does Parr know that Greenpeace has a democratic warrant to break the law? It appears that people’s fears about GM food “come up time and again in focus groups”. For Parr, the focus group, a traditional instrument of market research, represents an arena for the expression of popular will. Another barometer used by the campaign director of Greenpeace to gauge the will of the people is its shopping habits. “When Greenpeace ‘decontaminated’ a farm-scale trial, it was acting on behalf of people whose views were not being represented”, writes Parr. Why? Because “the public had already demonstrated its views very strongly by forcing GM foods off the supermarket shelves”. Consumer suspicion towards GM foods is represented as an act akin to casting a vote in a ballot box. Under this logic, if people stop eating Corn Flakes and force this cereal off the shelves of supermarkets, would protesters feel entitled to wreck the plant producing such unwanted pollutants.

Parr also claims that protestors have acted on behalf of people whose views are otherwise not represented. How does he know? From focus groups? From market research into people’s shopping habits? For a self appointed representative of the public, the conviction of righteousness is sufficient to justify action. It appears that the consumerist critique of parliamentary democracy is driven by the motive of providing protesters with a carte blanche to break the law. George Monbiot, a leading media environmental campaigner, contends that disruptive protest is a civic duty. Why? Because “Parliament is incompletely representative … It tends to concentrate on the concerns of target voters and powerful institutions, rather than those of the poor, the vulnerable or the unborn”, writes Monbiot 29. By dragging in even the unborn, Monbiot is able to construct a formidable constituency, whose voice is ignored by Parliament. In turn, the claim to be able to speak on behalf of people not yet born expresses the kind of supernatural powers that ordinary politicians manifestly lack.

There is little doubt that British democracy is imperfect and generally subject to vested interest. Most people have little say over the way that society is conducted and the political oligarchy possesses interests which often contradict what’s good for society. Nevertheless, people at least have a formal right to elect people to speak on their behalf. Whatever, the defects of parliamentary democracy, it at least invites people to vote for individuals and parties that reflect their preference. This political system also allows people - albeit infrequently - to get rid of politicians who have lost the support of the electorate. Paradoxically, this system of defective democracy is far superior to the so-called active citizenship of Greenpeace. Why? An elected politician and party at least has a mandate to speak on behalf of the public. In contrast, Lord Meltchett can only speak for his colleagues, who gave him his post as executive director of Greenpeace. The issue is not whether consumer activists are right or wrong about a particular subject. The point is that they are entitled to speak only for themselves and no one else. Lord Meltchett can no more claim to speak on my behalf than can the director of the Consumer’s Association. In contrast, my MP - with whom I largely disagree - has at least the right to claim to be my representative.

In reality, the consumerist critique of representative democracy is fundamentally an anti-democratic one. It is based on the premise that unelected individuals who possess a lofty moral purpose have a greater right to act on the public’s behalf than politicians elected through an imperfect political process. Environmentalist campaigners, who derive their mandate from a self selected network of advocacy groups, represent a far narrower constituency than an elected politician. Judging by its record, the response of consumer activism to the genuine problem of democratic accountability, is to avoid it altogether in favour of opting for interest group lobbying.

The anti-democratic ethos of many consumer activists is clearly demonstrated in their opportunistic and self-serving attitude towards the law. Activists reserve the right to either break the law when it suits them or use it when it serves their purpose. Monbiot claims that the law serves the interest of the rich and often discriminates against the poor 30. Traditionally, this was a compelling argument used to demand greater democracy. However today, consumer activists and their friends in the legal profession are likely to spend far more time using the law than demanding the expansion of democratic representation. Increasingly, campaigners seek to advance their cause through the courts rather than the political system. They appear to have a greater faith in an unelected judiciary than in Parliament.

Legal advocacy groups are increasingly looking to the civil justice system as a potential instrument for political reform. This orientation is in part influenced by the failure of the traditional British left to make much headway in influencing political life. According to Roger Smith, director of the Legal Action Group (LAG), the provision of public access to justice provides an alternative route to winning political influence. He claims that the decline of local government and of trade unionism has “encouraged the resolution of more disputes within the legal and justice structure”. Calling for a widening role for litigation, Smith advocates a more activist legal system:

Culturally, we have tended to decry litigation and have sneered at our characterisation of what we saw as writ-happy North Americans. However, high litigation rates may well be a sign of an active citizenry, prepared to be vigilant as to their rights. Indeed, as economic and political forces reduce the scope for democratic decision-taking, we should expect rising levels of litigation. We should predict - and welcome - greater use of our civil justice system. If we are not getting it - and for the last few years litigation rates have been reducing - then that is more likely to be a sign of exclusion than of satisfaction. The increasing complexity of modern society should lead to a greater use of the law: when this does not happen, we should consider that something may be going wrong 31.

The conviction that the extension of the power of the courts represents a positive alternative to promoting change through the political system underpins the outlook of litigation activists.
Many of the leading personal injury lawyers have used the individual grievances of plaintiffs to effect legal and political change. Martyn Day, Britain’s best known plaintiff’s lawyer is a Director of Greenpeace and is active in the area of environmental law. His firm is not simply in the business of winning cases, but in changing the law.

As former political activists embrace the law, otherwise discredited social movements have sought to reinvent themselves as the litigant’s friend. The reorientation of trades unions towards litigation illustrates the influence of victim culture on claim making. During the eighties, union leaders found it increasingly difficult to forge a role for themselves. The decline of collective solidarity and the weakening appeal of union activism diminished the influence of the movement. Union leaders found it difficult to promote their interests in the traditional language of trade unionism. Enforcing rights through the courts has helped to improve the image of unions, and also provided a new language through which their demands could be formulated. Whereas industrial action is often perceived in negative terms, taking an employer to Court is seen more favourably in the public eye.

The opportunistic mix of breaking the law and using it represents two different ways of getting around the issue of political accountability. This approach indicates that consumer activists have little genuine inclination to confront the political malaise that afflicts Western societies. As the main beneficiaries of the contemporary stagnation of political culture, consumer activists are far more likely to opt for approaches that consolidate the status quo.

The problem with consumer activism is not only its anti-democratic ethos. Consumer activism thrives on the apathy of the British public. It elevates the role of the professional activist and transforms politics into a system of lobbying and oligarchic networking. Although it is not responsible for the social disengagement that prevails in society, it helps to perpetuate this state of affairs by contributing towards further professionalisation of political life. The result is a form of oligarchic politics that is far more restrictive than the old imperfect parliamentary democracy.

Dr Frank Furedi

Frank Furedi reguarly comments in the media. His articles have been published in The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Independent, Wall Street Journal , The Daily Mail, Punch, LM Magazine, New Scientist, Toronto Globe and Mail and Die Zeit, amongst others.

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Notes

2. See J. Vidal ‘Seeds of dissent’, The Guardian; 17 August 1999.

3. See A. Travis, ‘The Camelot effect’, The Guardian; 19 May 1999.

4. ‘The global business of suing tobacco’ Terence Corcoran, National Post (of Canada), 30th September 1999.

5. Berry, J.M(1999) The New Liberalism; The Rising Power of Citizen Groups, (Brookings Institution Press: Washington, D.C.).

6. See J.M. Berry ‘A look at liberalism’s transformation’, Washington Post; 11 July 1999.

7. See Rabkin, J. & Sheehan, J.(1999) Global Greens, Global Governance, (IEA ; London), p.10.

8. Hall, P.(1999) ‘Social Capital in Britain’, British Journal of Political Science, vol.29, no.3,p.455.

9. ibid. p.455.

10. Berry, The New Liberalism, p.133.

11. This argument is outlined in a series of articles in Beck, U.(1998) Democracy Without Enemies, (Polity Press : Cambridge).

12. Smith, R.(1997) Justice: Redressing The Balance, (LAG : London), p.9.

13. Berry, The New Liberalism, p.170.

14. Curtice, J. & Jowell, R. 'The sceptical electorate' in Jowell, R., Curtice, J., Park, A., Brook, L. & Ahrendt, D. (eds.) (1995) British Social Attitudes, the 12th Report, (SCPR : Dartmouth),pp.141 & 148.

15. Findings of the poll published in The Guardian, 8 June 1999.

16. See Dogan, M. (1998) ‘The Decline of Traditional Values in Western Europe; Religion, Nationalism, Authority’, International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, vol.39, no.1.

17. Hall, ‘Social Capital in Britain’, pp.454-455.

18. Giddens, A.(1998) The Third Way; The New Renewal of Social Democracy, (Polity Press : Cambridge),p.80.

19. See Which Online Campaign; Policy Report, Consumer Representation, Executive Summary, 1999, p.1.

20. This development is analysed in Furedi, F.(1997) Culture of Fear; Risk Taking and the Morality of Low Expectation, (Cassell : London), Chapter 5.

21. Consumer Representation; p.3.

22. Berry, The New Liberalism, p.131.

23. See the discussion in Furedi, F.(1999) Courting Mistrust; The hidden growth of a culture of litigation in Britain, (CPS : London), pp.6-8.

24. See A. Travis ‘The Camelot effect’, The Guardian; 19 May 1999.

25. See J. Freedland ‘Foyer to the future’, The Guardian, 20 August 1999.

26. See Rabkin & Sheehan, Global Greens, pp.10-11.

27. Cited in BBC ONLINE NETWORK, 7 July 1999.

28. Cited in The Guardian; 17 August 1999.

29. See G. Monbiot; ‘Disruptive protest is a civic duty’, The Guardian; 19 August 1999.

30. ibid.

31. Smith, R.(1997) Justice: Redressing The Balance, (LAG : London) pp.9 & 10.