On Saturday, Demos hosted a session at this year’s Compass Conference, ‘Born Free and Equal’. At the conference, seminars explored the variety of inequalities existent in British society, in which contexts they play themselves out, and what exacerbates them.
But one question, as ever, remained neglected. What sustains inequality?
The answer is partly about empowerment and political education. So long as those who encounter inequality remain politically under-informed, they will also remain politically powerless, lacking the ability to tip the scales back in their favour. How many parents of disabled children know that they have a right by law to demand flexible working hours? How many women know that it is against the law for an employer to discriminate for any reason connected with maternity leave?
The victims of injustice need a political education which furnishes them with the knowledge of what power is already at their disposal, and an understanding of how to use it. Moreover, by helping to show inequality’s victims how they can employ the existing political system, their initial step towards empowerment will have greater longevity because it will be self authored.
Crucially, we need to consider the possible repercussions of a state which fails to politically educate and empower citizens who see themselves as inequality’s victims. Speaking at the Demos seminar, Jon Cruddas MP spoke about the rise in BNP popularity in his constituency of Dagenham. This should be a warning of what may happen if people turn to the political mechanisms and language which they find comprehensible and accessible in order to address their problems.
We need to provide people with a sense of agency and show them the roads by which they can act out that agency, so they can begin to achieve equality for themselves.