We must protect our fragile democracy from the bros, says Anneliese Dodds MP

“Labour mustn’t lose. The choice is social democracy or the bros,” warned Dr Anneliese Dodds MP at the Rita Hinden Memorial Lecture hosted at City St George’s, University of London.

The lecture was organised by the journal Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy and the Finsbury Institute, a hub for policy and research at City St George’s.

Dr Lise Butler, Senior Lecturer in Modern History and co-editor of Renewal, hosted the event, which opened with remarks from Professor Diana Beech, Director of the Finsbury Institute, and Dr David Klemperer of Renewal.

Dodds outlined the dangers facing social democracy in an age of populism and Big Tech. She urged Labour to “act to protect our fragile democracy,” warning that complacency after Labour’s 2024 landslide would be dangerous. Far-right movements continue to reshape politics, with their globally connected anti-democratic activists and politicians currently meeting little organised resistance.

Dodds revisited Must Labour Lose?, the 1960 pamphlet co-authored by Rita Hinden after Labour’s third successive defeat, in which the social democratic and internationalist activist Hinden argued that waning class loyalties demanded new strategies.

Dodds drew a parallel to today’s fractured electorate.

“We're currently experiencing a change to British society and politics that I believe is just as momentous as a reduction in class-based political affiliation that Hinden and her coauthors analysed”, she said. “Far from number 10, Nigel Farage has been amassing power in the sprawling networked space for 21st century politics happens. That power involves, I would argue, a new fusion, a melding of the economic and the political power of big tech.”

Some social media platforms can now influence elections, information flows and public trust. The “bros” who run them are often interested in profit-driven power, and increasingly aligning with the populist right.

“Delivering more stuff - better services, more money in people’s pockets - is critical but not enough,” Dodds argued. Instead, she argued that Labour has to adapt at “lightning speed” to the new world of politics.

She said:

Adapting at lightning speed requires urgent action to protect our democracy.

It means a reimagining of common endeavour and it requires us as social democrats to show we're on the side of innovation and of humans.

We must act to protect our fragile democracy, developing global networks as strong as those of the populist right.

We must cease treating big tech as delivering free services like manna from heaven, and by properly understanding its role in our economy, harness its promise while reducing its harms.

We must always be the voice for humans, rather than being mouthpieces for those who use human relationships and what humans produce as their means to generate commercial opportunities.