The Occupation protest puts the curious non-democratic status of the City under the spotlight, argues Natalie Bennett

Published: November 10, 2011

JUST outside Camden’s borders, in the City, there’s an Occupation outside St Paul’s Cathedral, and in Finsbury Square.

The location is no accident. The protesters assembled with the aim of occupying the Stock Exchange, to highlight the huge damage done to the lives of many millions of ordinary people by the reckless, corrupt, exploitative, activities of the financial industries.

But in another sense it was, perhaps, an accident. They were thinking on a national scale, and not about the City itself, and its curious, non-democratic status.

It’s not like Camden. Residents don’t have elected reps who stand up for their interests with an equal voice in the council chamber. For there are 9,000 residents in the City, who have 9,000 votes. But there are also 32,000 votes held by the companies of the City – mostly multi-national firms, mostly in the finance industries.

As the protest has developed, participants have come to understand this – and the way this has implications far beyond the Square Mile.

For the City doesn’t just rule over its own space. It also has huge, and institutionalised, influence in Westminster. And, of course, in Camden we’re well aware of the influence of the corporation outside its boundaries, on Hampstead Heath.

While we might have concerns about how the Heath is run, of course maintaining that wonderful space is essential – but no reason why it couldn’t be done by a properly constituted, independent charity and not this weird antique entity.

The curious constitutional fact is that the Prime Minister has to meet the City, if it asks, within 10 days. And sitting right at the heart of the House of Commons is the Remembrancer. Quaint-sounding title, but his role is to influence MPs and have “day to day contact with officials in government departments responsible for developing government policy, the drafting and promotion of legislation”. We can go to the City’s own word to understand its aims: it “is committed to maintaining and enhancing the status of the City as the world’s leading international financial and business centre… and to establish contact with decision-makers and people of influence wordwide”.

The Lord Mayor (and the rest of the structure) expounds “the values of liberalisation”.

In 2010, for example, it issued a memorandum opposing European efforts to rein in the activities of hedge funds, and arguing against the restriction of over-the-counter derivatives.

The manufacturing industries don’t have a similar representative at the heart of government; or disabled people; or  pensioners. Nor do many other groups we might think the government should listen to, to balance the views of the financial industry.

When I first learnt about this I was astonished, and pretty well everyone I’ve spoken to about it has been equally gobsmacked that such a structure could exist in 21st-century Britain.

When I took the issue to the Green Party national conference in September, moving an almost-unanimously backed motion calling for us to campaign on the issue, it seemed like we were picking up the baton for a slow, long-distance race on this issue. In 2000 the Green Party London manifesto called on the City to reform or be abolished, and we haven’t exactly seen progress since then.

But now, finally, this is an issue that has jumped high into the national political conversation. There’s a protest planned in conjunction with the Lord Mayor’s Show on Saturday; it’s being talked about in the press, and on the steps of St Paul’s (whose own ties to the financial industries are under scrutiny).

What’s yet to get much attention is another important issue, the City Cash “a private fund built up over the last eight centuries” that earns income from “property supplemented by investment earnings”.

Its income is estimated at £300million a year, its capital over £1billion.

We can’t know, however, any detail at all, for the operations of most of the Corporation of the City of London are explicitly excluded from the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

This has been built up through donations over eight centuries, by the people of London, most of whom, it can be reasonably assumed, meant it to be used for the people of London. In past centuries the City has been a relatively positive, representative institution, that not infrequently stood up against unreasonable acts of Crown and Parliament.

So imagine if we abolished the corporation (as a Royal Commission in 1894 demanded). We could give the City’s residents a democratic choice of their future – they might want to join Camden, Islington or Tower Hamlets, or strike out on their own. The money could go to the mayor and assembly of London, to be used for the benefit of all Londoners – the capital could go towards a massive investment in council housing, the interest to the upgrading of buses, facilities for pedestrian and cyclists, and to maintaining the many threatened services for the capital’s most vulnerable.

And if we reduced the political influence of the financial industries, the building pressures on our political leaders to act to reduce inequality – to make the minimum wage a living wage, to make corporations pay their taxes and not rip off their customers, to invest in housing, transport and services – would have less counterforce against them.

Certainly, on the Heath and elsewhere, the corporation supports good charity work. But that in no way outweighs the damage its influence does to our national life.

• Natalie Bennett is chair of Camden Green Party