Abolish Westminster

From a bold new voice in political commentary and investigative journalism, a piercing dissection of the democratic crisis faced by Britain today.'Adam Ramsay strips Westminster's façade to expose a machine engineered for the powerful - Whitehall, courts, Crown, and offshore cash working in concert. His verdict: don't reform this prison, storm it.'YANIS VAROUFAKIS'Abolish Westminster is that rarest of things: a book that combines righteous anger and fascinating detail. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how Britain works, how it doesn't and what we can do to fix it.'PETER GEOGHEGAN, author of Democracy for SaleGo to any street in Britain and ask people what they think about politics, and most will tell you that it is broken, that they 'don't trust any of them' - our politicians. In other words, they believe our system doesn't work, or that it works only for a chosen few, the elites.A searing work of political analysis, Abolish Westminster makes the case that most people are in fact correct: our politics is broken. Lifting the lid on the British state and society, Abolish Westminster explains why. Examining the lack of accountability faced by our major governmental departments, the pliancy of our cultural institutions and the malleability of national identity, it reveals how power and money are often bent back to the powerful and wealthy - and how, historically, this has almost always been the case, producing disastrous effects. And so, Adam Ramsay points to a radical possibility in an effort to re-establish democracy: breaking up Britain.Abolish Westminster defines the democratic deficit that plagues Britain's political system at a critical moment for the country. In the face of this, it confronts a crucial dilemma with a hopeful clarion call: do things have to be this way, and what might the alternative be?

Adam Ramsay is a Scottish journalist; he previously held various editorial positions at OpenDemocracy. As well as covering the democratic crisis in Britain, his investigative work - shortlisted for a Press Gazette Media Award - has helped expose the role of dark money and lobby groups in shaping British politics. His work has appeared in The Guardian, New Statesman, Byline Times, The National and Novara, among other publications.