Dr Jeevun Sandher

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. The truth is that today democracy is dying and we have to face that if we want to save it as it stands. We are living in a divided nation, where people are losing faith in democracy because they cannot afford a decent life, they do not see a way forward and they see others who can. A nation as divided as ours cannot stand and it will not endure unless we protect and save it. We are divided by economics, by geography and online. We live in a nation where record numbers cannot afford a decent living. We live in different places in our country. Young people go to university and then never come back home. They live in major cities, living entirely different lives to those they have left behind. We occupy completely different spaces online. On average, we spend two and a half hours scrolling a day, hearing and listening to things that others do not, inhabiting completely different worlds. If we want to address that, and want people to once again have faith in our democracy, we need both a policy answer and a political answer. On the policy side, people need to see that democracy can and does deliver for them. There is a cost of living crisis today. What delivering means is good jobs in every single place for people. It means places where people can cohere and come together in their local communities, as well as ending the pervading sense of loneliness that leads people to live their lives online, seeing more extreme content, engaging with it, living within it and being driven by it. More than that, there is a political answer. How do we come together as one nation and one people? The answer is by living up to the greatest values of Britishness—unity, decency and determination. That is what has made this nation make the impossible seem only remarkable. It is how we saved democracy in Europe and saw it spread across the globe. It is how we came together during a pandemic. And beyond those great moments are the small, everyday ones that make life worth while—having a pint, queuing politely, a cup of tea. That is what it means to be British, cohering as one nation, together. The radical right will say, “No, no, no—we can fix all our problems by attacking immigrants.” The radical left will say, “It is all about corporations.” It is for us to say that we stand as one British people for decency— not blaming, but cohering together. Unity, decency, determination: that is how we protect our democracy, that is how we save it and that is how we keep it for future generations.