What times we live in – a new report on ‘Protecting our Democracy from Coercion’. The matter of what democracy is, what state it is in and how it might be different is complex. I’m no expert. But I’m curious as to whether or not this is a politically neutral report.

The Foreword says “Noble causes such as the battle against climate change have been hijacked by extremist groups determined to bypass democratic norms and cause maximum disruption to society”.

A March 2024 YouGov poll found that two-thirds of UK adults are very or fairly worried about climate change; it also found that 62% think that UK politicians are doing too little to tackle climate change. In a democracy you might think that doing more therefore would be in line with ‘respecting the will of the British people’.

I’m not sure that includes granting licences for new oil and gas drilling and rolling back the end of sale of new fossil fuelled cars by 5 years. Perhaps it might be reasonable for people to protest about that mismatch with public opinion. Or even reasonable to protest on the basis that the High Court has twice found the Government’s Net Zero Strategy wanting in terms of meeting its legal obligation. Or on the basis of the alarm being sounded by scientists about the action needed and the potential consequences of inaction. Perhaps it might seem odd instead to modify the law to allow people to be arrested who walk peacefully in the street?

The report’s author in the Foreword says “I conclude, unsurprisingly, that there is a greater violent threat from the far right. Yet I find a worrying gap in our understanding of the extreme left”. Careful use of terms there it seems – far right but ‘extreme’ left. And odd because in the table of contents reference is made to ‘extreme right wing’ and ‘far right’, versus ‘left wing’ and ‘far left’.

I know it’s not a substitute for a thorough read of the report but I thought I’d read the Executive Summary. It left me wanting to prepare some match statistics. There were 8 mentions of ‘right’ but all but two of these instances actually meant ‘correct’ or ‘entitled’. Meanwhile there were 14 mentions of ‘left’ with none of these instances meaning ‘departed from’ or ‘remaining’.

If you then look ahead to the main body of the report, according to the table of contents, right-wing protest has 28 pages devoted to it; meanwhile left-wing protest has 65 pages. In terms of the possession of the ball that’s 30%/70%.

The report has a glossary of terms in its introduction. It includes anti-fascism, but not fascism. I would have thought explaining the latter was a pre-requisite for explaining the former?

I’m left wondering whether there is more focus on left-wing concerns such as around environmentalism, racism and fascism because if you reach into the hearts and minds of the British people they have values and concerns about these issues and want to see more done by those charged as public servants to act in a democracy on behalf of its people?