‘Trust brought down Boris Johnson and the last Conservative Government. If Labour doesn’t start to rebuild trust, and soon, then it could be heading in the same direction.’
Shaun Roberts is Director of Campaigns and Digital, Unlock Democracy
2021 was the beginning of the end of Boris Johnson and the start of Keir Starmer’s march to power. But for much of 2021, things looked very different, with the Conservatives holding a 10-point lead with YouGov as late as mid October. What changed all this?
The big news in October 2021 was the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal. The Conservative MP Owen Paterson was found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have breached paid advocacy rules and was suspended from the Commons for 30 days. That should have been that, but the Conservative Government under Boris Johnson chose to stand by its disgraced MP and tried to overthrow the standards system to save him from suspension.
It took a backlash from backbench Conservative MPs to persuade the Government to change path, but the damage was done. Voters had seen an ugly side to the Conservative Government and the first poll taken after Paterson’s resignation from Parliament showed a 12-point Labour lead – the biggest Labour poll lead since July 2013.
A month later, almost to the day, the Partygate scandal hit and Labour led in every poll for the rest of the Parliament. Liz Truss came along and turned a healthy Labour lead into an unbeatable one. But the rot started with trust.
The new Government seems to have forgotten that.
In opposition, Labour made promises to introduce an independent Ethics and Integrity Commission to improve standards, to restrict second jobs for MPs and to deliver meaningful reform of the House of Lords, not just remove the hereditary peers. They rightly spoke out against cronyism, sleaze and corruption.
Keir Starmer couldn’t have been clearer when he said “the Westminster system is part of the problem.” But 8 months after the election, we’ve seen very little action to back up the tough talk we heard in opposition.
The new Government has been beset with stories of ongoing sleaze and poor behaviour. While these are not on the scale of Partygate, they continue to eat away at trust in our politics. Research carried out by More In Common on the Government’s first 100 days in power highlighted the damage that ‘Freebiegate’ has done to trust.
All this is reflected in the polls. As we write this, of the last 12 opinion polls published, Reform has led in 8 of them. Labour’s poll ratings are barely half of what they were a year ago.
Maybe it’s time for a different approach.
We’re not saying that the Government should turn its attention away from fixing the economy, rebuilding the NHS, or the crisis in Ukraine exacerbated by President Trump.
We’re saying that if people can’t trust the political system and the politics it gives us, then it affects everything that the Government tries to do. Last week, I attended a meeting with residents on a council estate in Luton to talk about democracy. What I heard there was repeated in similar sessions across the country. The message is clear – our political system isn’t working. It doesn’t need some tinkering around the edges, it needs large-scale change.
That’s what people were hoping for and expecting when Labour won the General Election. And it’s not too late to meet these hopes!
If people don’t trust the system, then they won’t listen to leaders even when they’re saying something true and important. If they don’t trust the system, they will turn to more extreme parties who promise radical but damaging reform, along the lines of what we’re seeing from President Trump.
It’s time for the Government to do more than acknowledge the failings in our system. It’s time to act.
Here are three ways to do this that cost almost no money and very little Government time:
- Set up the promised Independent Ethics & Integrity Commission, restrict MPs’ second jobs and ban freebies for MPs and Ministers.
- Get big money out of our politics – stop foreign donations and restrict the size of donations. The most important voices in a democracy should be the voters, not the richest and most powerful.
- Deliver serious House of Lords reform – yes, hereditary peers have no place in a modern Parliament, but neither do cronies, donors and party appointees. Labour should deliver what they promised in their manifesto – “replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations.”
We could go on because so many things are broken in our political system. The people can see it. In opposition Labour could see it. When people don’t trust the political system, they are far more likely to turn on those in power who are failing to act.
Trust brought down Boris Johnson and the last Conservative Government. If Labour doesn’t start to rebuild trust, and soon, then it could be heading in the same direction.
Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons
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