UK HAS NO CONFIDENCE IN GOVERNMENT

Brits also don’t believe that government can tackle important issues

FAITH in the UK government has collapsed over the last decade, with almost half of people now feeling that they can't be trusted. A survey carried out by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in March - which was before the slew of resignations that brought down Boris Johnson's government - found that only 35% of people actually trusted the government.

That's compared to 50% of people when the survey was run in 2010.

In fact, 49% of respondents to the survey said they do not trust the government.

The biggest loss in trust came in 2019, when it fell eight percentage points from 42% to 34%.

This was around the end of Theresa May's time as Prime Minister when the country was trapped in Brexit deadlock.

Distrust isn't limited to the seat of power either. MPS and Lords fared slightly worse than the government as only 34% said they trusted parliament. However this is much better than political parties, with only one in five people having faith in them

Perhaps most damning, 65% of respondents believed high-level politicians to be potentially corrupt, saying they would be unlikely to refuse a well paid private sector job in exchange for a political favour.

This distrust between politicians and the people they serve has potentially weakened belief in political participation altogether.

Only 49% of respondents were confident in their ability to participate in politics, and 58% did not believe that UK politics allows them to have a say in how government is run.

This comes as no surprise when 51% believed national policy was unlikely to be changed if a majority opposed it.

These numbers suggest that for many across the country, there is a belief that government does not accurately represent them. People generally did not trust government, and had little faith in their own ability to enact political change.

On a policy level, climate change was seen as the most pressing issue. Over a quarter (27%) were not at all confident that the UK will reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years, with 37% saying they were “a little confident”. Three quarters believe climate change is best addressed by international cooperation, and two thirds believe that the UK government should join other countries in tackling global challenges.

With 41% saying the government needs to do a lot more on climate change, the highest of any policy area, it seems that the government policy is falling behind public appetite.

This survey was carried out as part of a larger study on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) 38 member states. On average, 41% of respondents in other countries trusted their government, whereas 39% trusted their parliament. While this shows that distrust of government is seemingly the norm, it is exceptionally high in the UK, with the eighth least trusted government out of 38. However, beyond the political sphere, Brits generally had more faith in other parts of the state, having more confidence in our civil service and legal system.

This suggests that it is faith in politics that has suffered the most, rather than faith in the institutions of government.