When did charities turn into insufferable activist groups?

When did charities become so political? From Oxfam to the British Heart Foundation, many British charities are going well beyond their core missions of saving lives and helping the needy and have branched out into political lobbying, whether it’s for sugar taxes or so-called climate justice. The third sector has relegated old-fashioned charity work to second place, behind lobbying the government for ‘progressive’ policies.

This trend should not be allowed to pass unnoticed, especially when there is such a clear revolving door between charities and politics. According to research from Transparency International in 2023, almost one in three ex-Conservative ministers ended up in jobs that overlapped with their government brief – many in charities. After last year’s General Election delivered a landslide of new Labour MPs, more than 35 per cent of parliamentarians now have a ‘background’ in the charity sector, including eight members of the cabinet.

Labour figures have proved most adept at floating seamlessly between NGOs and government. Gordon Brown’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, now specialises in ‘refugee resettlement and assistance’ at the International Rescue Committee. Others, like UNICEF and Save the Children’s Justin Forsyth, have gone back and forth between charity and government. In 2023, Oxfam appointed Halima Begum as its chief executive, who tried to become Labour MP in 2019.

The result of this echo chamber is clear in charities’ output. Last year, Oxfam, which was founded to help famine relief efforts in the developing world, called for a 60 per cent tax in the UK on income, stocks, shares, rent and other revenue ‘that the rich disproportionately rely on’. The British Heart Foundation pledges to reach Net Zero by 2045 and pushes for nanny-state policies like sugar and salt taxes. Christian Aid was set up to provide life-saving support when wars blighted some of the world’s poorest communities. Now it also campaigns for ‘climate justice’, whatever that means.

It’s not just charity and politics that have blurred, but also the so-called third sector and the state. The free-flowing nature of grant money for right-on causes in recent decades has led to a new generation of organisations that call themselves charities but act solely as pressure groups and lobbyists. Organisations like Action on Smoking and Health and the UK Health Forum receive taxpayer cash while campaigning for anti-freedom policy interventions, from tobacco prohibition to advertising restrictions and taxes on food.

The sums of money involved are often significant enough to prop up entire organisations, especially as it relates to devolved governments. The 2018 launch of Obesity Action Scotland was funded solely by a grant from the Scottish government. Three years later, Holyrood published its Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan, which was a cut-and-paste job from Obesity Action Scotland’s policy platform. It called for bans on buy-one-get-one-free deals, among other illiberal measures.

No matter which party is holding the purse strings, the government doles out money to organisations like these, which then promptly launch campaigns against that same government. The result is either the government adopting the activists’ policies wholesale, as the SNP did in 2018 on obesity, or politicians wasting time and money opposing campaigns from groups that wouldn’t exist without state funding.

The solution to this issue is straightforward. The cycle of grant cash arriving on activists’ doorsteps on a regular basis must end. There has been talk of a British equivalent of Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) to root out wasteful spending. Charity grants should be at the top of the list.

If groups like Obesity Action Scotland can survive on private donations, then so be it. At least then they could campaign as genuine independents, rather than relying on public money. More likely, the booming industry of activist NGOs would collapse if government funding dries up. After all, few ordinary people would see much value in their activities and be willing to donate. More broadly, politicians should be much less willing to engage charities in the policymaking process, whether they receive taxpayer money or not.

Most of these ‘charities’ don’t seem to have noticed the precariousness of their position. They ought to do some long-term planning. Many rely on short-term government grants and have shifted their resources overwhelmingly towards political activism, undermining their hard-won reputations in the process.

Charities have an important role to play in society. They should ditch the politics and go back to what they do best – providing direct help to those who need it most.

Jason Reed is a writer and broadcaster on politics and policy. Follow him on X: @JasonReed624