23rd April 2026
Should the Bank of England control UK interest rates, or should that power return to elected government? In this video, I argue that the Bank of England's independence was never a neutral, technocratic decision. It was a deliberate political project, rooted in far-right Public Choice Theory, designed to strip democratic control away from ordinary people and hand it to unelected bankers.
Since 1997, the Bank of England has been given a single tool, control of the base interest rate, to chase a single target of a 2% inflation rate that no economist can convincingly justify. There are no targets for growth, employment, living standards or climate change. There is just a number pulled from thin air, enforced at enormous cost to people in this county.
The result is near 5% unemployment, 10% youth unemployment, soaring mortgage costs, and excessive rents. We have a Treasury with its foot on the accelerator while the Bank of England slams the brake, both pulling the economic steering wheel in opposite directions. No wonder the country is not performing. The rot starts in this dysfunctional relationship
This video explains why Bank of England independence was always a neoliberal political experiment that was designed to undermine democracy and the people of this country.
Now, the neoliberal era is over. The Bank of England's independence has delivered incoherence, crisis, and a democratic deficit that the UK can no longer afford. It is time to bring interest rate policy back to the Treasury, where elected politicians should be accountable for their decisions.