Tackling the 15-minute cities conspiracy means fixing inequality

The sea of yellow placards, held aloft in the protest against Oxford’s low -traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) scheme earlier this month, told a story. In the crowd of about 2,000 people who took part, it was clear the demonstration was about much more than traffic reduction.

“The 15-minute WEF ghettoes are not about climate, it’s tyrannical control,” read a placard. “Say NO to the new world order. Say no to 15 mins prison cities. Wake up, people, wake up.”

Oxford has accidentally found itself at a flashpoint. Its town planners cast as the acolytes of some shadowy new world order, intent on crushing liberty – not with secret police, arrests and intimidation but under the boot heel of a modal filter planted with a few herbs and shrubs.

Across the UK, councils are installing barriers to limit car traffic to main roads, while encouraging residents to walk, cycle and make use of local amenities. The idea is to reduce pollution, while making streets safer and more livable. The schemes, though, have split opinion.

In Oxford the council is going further than most to tackle worsening congestion on its medieval roads. Six electronic traffic filters are to be tested in a six-month trial. Private car drivers will need a permit to pass through between 7am and 7pm. Those without one will face a penalty charge of £35, rising to £70 if it is not paid within two weeks.

While there are legitimate concerns from residents, details of the scheme have also been repackaged for a wider audience of sceptics. The far right, libertarians, and assorted conspiracy theorists are riding the wave of resistance to LTNs as fertile ground for their interests. As the Covid pandemic fades, this is the next front in the fight against a supposed elite cabal, centred on the World Economic Forum, which organises the annual Davos gathering, pulling the strings on world events. For the Oxford protest, the far-right group Patriotic Alternative, Laurence Fox, Piers Corbyn, Katie Hopkins and the 1990s pop group-cum-conspiracy theorists Right Said Fred had travelled in to the university city.

Some protesters continued with the anti-vaccine placards. For others, the new targets were held aloft. Many have a common theme: the economy, its institutions, and efforts to combat global heating.

Campaigners against a “cashless society” were out in particular force. It may have little to do with Oxford’s roads but the fear here is that a central bank digital currency is the next step on from containing car drivers in “open-air prisons”. “URGENT. Your future is at stake, are you aware that the government plan to introduce: digital ID, linked to central bank digital currency (like the Chinese system)?” reads one pamphlet.

Concerns about economic developments are hardly new. From the Luddites to the illuminati, the overarching power of the US Federal Reserve, or gatherings of the global elite at Bilderberg or Davos. The angle of attack, however, has shifted.

When mainstream politicians increasingly pose as antiestablishment renegades, the conspiracy theorists are emboldened. No matter the Eton pedigree, whipping up a culture war has produced electoral success. And as with dog whistle warnings of a migrant “invasion”, economics, too, is in the firing line.

For the 15-minute city, the Conservative MP for Don Valley, Nick Fletcher, raised the “international socialist concept” in the commons earlier this month as a subject for urgent debate. Liz Truss has also fuelled the internet rumour mill with complaints about shadowy elites, cosplaying Margaret Thatcher and disinfo warrior all in one, with calls to take on “Treasury orthodoxy” and hold the failing Bank of England to account. Far from her own shortcomings, it was a mysterious “leftwing economic elite” she blamed for her aborted term in office.

The trouble, however, is that beneath the misinformation, fantasy and deceit, all conspiracy theories tend to have a kernel of truth. And for the economy, the fact is, living standards are barely shifting for many, while a super-rich few have never had it so good.

These are fertile times for disinformation, as inequality booms after a decade of flatlining progress. Wages today are no higher after inflation than in 2007, in a dismal period since the 2008 financial crisis, capped by the current cost of living emergency.

“During times of economic uncertainty, downturn, crisis, conspiracy theories thrive. Because often it’s not true that everyone is in it together,” says Tim Squirrell of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which works to tackle rising polarisation, extremism and disinformation. “That means people not only see their own fortunes getting worse with no real prospect of them getting better but they also see other people aren’t suffering the same fate.”

“Obviously, saying the economy is rigged in favour of a small number of people making a large amount of money is not a conspiracy theory; it’s an assertion. But it makes it easier to leap and say there is an elite plot to ensure it happens.”

Taking on the conspiracy merchants requires tackling the underlying problems they seek to exploit. Yet rather than committing to reshape the economy and rebalance inequalities, politicians in the party of government are stoking division by leaning into some of the wilder theories.

For 15-minute cities, part of the problem is enforcing neighbourhood restrictions without investment in local amenities to make staying put worthwhile. Austerity has made matters worse across Britain but particularly so in smaller towns and on the outskirts of cities where the car has grown in importance. Levelling up is no more than an empty phrase, while cuts to buses, libraries, leisure centres and other key public services have been keenly felt.

Social cohesion is harder on a shoestring. Division thrives when public services are stretched, workers’ pay stagnates, and the economy underperforms for millions of people. This is where the work to really take on the far right must focus.