ARE the public finally wakening up to the great harm that unelected bodies do to our personal freedoms, economic prosperity, cultural values and safety from foreign powers or terrorists? That might seem like a long list of threats to our way of life – because it is – yet it is a simple reflection of the wide range of issues Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) lobby government over to bring about change they want.
It used to be the case that NGOs, many of which are charities, were more trusted than any other institutions, but this no longer holds true. The latest Edelman Trust Barometer shows that business is trusted more than NGOs, with government and the media behind both.
There’s nothing wrong with single issue groups proselytising a particular view – that’s free speech – but what is utterly scandalous is how many and to what a significant extent today’s NGOs are funded by the taxpayer, only for them to campaign against the democratic choices of those taxpayers.
There is also the difficulty that in being funded by the taxpayer to help solve a problem there can be a perverse incentive for the NGO never to solve that problem, because its funding would then dry up.
NGOs can be found campaigning against government policies while in the receipt of taxpayers’ money. For example Asylum Aid, which is very proud of its role in blocking the government plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda for processing, received the vast bulk of its revenue (£1.6million of £1.7million) from the taxpayer and grants by large donors such as the National Lottery Community Fund, the Open Society Foundation, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
In the international sphere, some NGOs can be found making political statements that could materially impact on territorial disputes, such as the Hamas terrorism of October 7 2023 and Israel’s response, or even Israel’s right to exist, while receiving taxpayer funding to deliver humanitarian relief in Gaza. There appears to be no limit to the hypocrisy of some NGOs in running their own agenda that is contrary to the goals they take public money for.
While in the past NGOs could seek to expose bad business practices or highlight threats to the environment through the media, few doubted their motives or challenged their narratives. Now, thanks in part to the internet and social media removing the filter of the mainstream media, we are able to see what is not being reported: we are able to delve into the background and do our own due diligence on NGOs.
It was in 1999, following the ‘battle of Seattle’ demonstrations against free trade being sought by governments and businesses at that year’s World Trade Organisation meeting, that the communications firm Edelman decided to commission an annual ‘trust barometer’ to measure who the public trusts and what influences such judgements. At that point the most trusted institutions globally were the NGOs – some of which were responsible for the demonstrations.
As a result of the 2003 Iraq war and the financial crisis of 2008, the poor showing of governments and business was maintained. Yet by 2020 the survey found trust in businesses as a group had grown to level with NGOs, and thereafter pulling ahead of them as the truth about many NGOs became accessible.
Scandals over the behaviour of various charities’ employees (such as sexual exploitation by Oxfam staff in Haiti in 2018 and in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021), the huge salaries being paid to senior executives, and the departure of some NGOs from what they were established to campaign on has eaten away at public trust. Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace as an environmental campaign, became its biggest critic over its doomsday scenario over climate change, while just recently Greenpeace in the UK attacked the US embassy in London with red dye to protest against arms sales to Israel.
This year’s barometer shows business achieves a public trust level of at least 60 per cent in 15 of 28 countries measured, but for NGOs it’s only 11 of 28, while government is distrusted in 17 of the 28. In addition, only business is seen globally as both competent and ethical.
Usually established as not-for-profit entities, many NGOs are approved as charities. All are unaccountable to the public for the regulations they campaign for, meaning they face no consequences if their policies prove to be a failure, costing jobs, limiting economic activity and requiring more government welfare or subsidies as a result.
There are more than 170,000 charities in Britain with a combined spending of £94billion last year. In comparison the Ministry of Defence cost £53.9billion in the same period. While the majority of British charities are small, about 9,000 have an income of more than £1million and many use their moral authority as a charity to push tax and ban ideas.
From dictating industrial and economic policy (such as campaigning for strict adherence to Net Zero), to energy provision (not developing oil and gas fields) to food standards (lower sugar and salt etc), to broadcast advertising rules (adverts presenting family diversity as standard) and sports governance (insisting on trans athletes participating in the classification of their choice), these activist charities ultimately denude consumers of choice and push the cost of living up for the poorest. All in the name of saving us from ourselves.
Be it Blair and Brown or Cameron through to Sunak, our leaders have not challenged the growing influence or taxpayer-funded activist NGOs. It must be a job for the current government: now is the time to start making a case for reducing the power of NGOs.
For detailed insights readers may find the following links useful:
https://ngo-monitor.org/funder/united_kingdom/
