Article by Keir Starmer
“Remember, remember the third of November – the day Boris Johnson and his cronies attempted to give politicians a free rein to behave however they like, free from scrutiny or sanction. It is fitting that the Prime Minister chose this week to pile the reputations of 248 of his own MPs on his bonfire of corruption.
Seeing Conservative members line up like drones to vote to scrap the body that polices their behaviour was utterly depressing. Many have suddenly become brave after the event, claiming they knew it was a bad idea all along. They should be judged by their actions, not their words.
But the blame – all the blame – is on the Prime Minister. More sordid details are emerging, including reports that the Government threatened to withdraw funding for constituencies of MPs who voted against his plans. Reflect on that for a second – if you’ve got a Tory MP and they want to take a stand against corruption, Boris Johnson will respond by taking money from your local school, your local hospital and your local high street.
It suits the Tories to pretend that all politics is a sewer. It lowers public expectations and allows them to get away with it. But this week we’ve seen that simply isn’t true. I am proud that Labour MPs acted as a vanguard and voted against the Prime Minister’s latest attempts to poison the well.
By refusing to recognise their sham committee, we rendered it a farce that couldn’t stand, beating them back into a humiliating U-turn.
For the Conservatives to now claim they want “cross party talks” is frankly embarrassing. The problem is, there is very little common ground – the Tories have shown this week that they want a weaker system that allows MPs to break the rules and their mates to let them off. Labour wants a tougher system, one that can restore faith in our democracy and our political system.
If I were Prime Minister, we would have an Office of Value for Money on behalf of taxpayers, an anti-corruption commission with real teeth and far greater transparency on how your hard-earned money is spent. And we’d toughen the rules so MPs can’t profit from their office and open the door to vested interests. That is a serious plan to clean up Westminster.
Our politics should be a beacon of what is good and what is possible. MPs are rightly held to a higher standard. When those standards aren’t met, we should have the courage to admit it. The British public can forgive mistakes – they can’t forgive arrogance and lies.
So the first thing the Prime Minister should now do is say sorry. Not just for this week’s disgrace, but for the way he tried to get Dominic Cummings and Matt Hancock off the hook. Or the way he has allowed his government to use Covid as cover for siphoning billions of pounds of taxpayer money to his friends and donors. At a time when the Tories are raising taxes for every household in the country by £3,000, the least people can expect in return is that the Prime Minister doesn’t thumb his nose at them. Failure to apologise will lead to one obvious conclusion – that Boris Johnson truly believes there should be one rule for him and his friends, another for the rest of us.
As Director of Public Prosecutions, securing the interests of ordinary people against the crooked and the powerful, I’ve seen this attitude many times before. It is the hallmark of every out of touch, arrogant, condescending elite that thinks they should be above scrutiny. But something I’ve learned over the years is that pride comes before a fall. You might get away with it for a while, but it always catches up with you in the end. If the Prime Minister continues down this path – of sleaze, cronyism, corruption – the lesson from this week is that it will be on the ballot box at the next election.”
