Wonders will never cease

I made passing reference in my last post to an action taken very recently by the UK government that seemed to me – as it did to many others – to be fundamentally corrupt… and one which by its very nature would lead to a significant denigration of the UK’s much vaunted and centuries old democratic accountability.

As it turned out – however – the old saw about twenty four hours (other time measures available!) being a long time in politics proved most apt in this case.

It occurs to me that those outwith the UK might not be aware of this particular story. To that end I thought I might offer a quick catch up. Here we go:

• Tory MP and ex-Northern Ireland secretary – Owen Paterson – was investigated by the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards after being accused of breaking the lobbying rules for MPs.
• Paterson had been doing extremely well-remunerated consultancy work for several companies but had been accused of going further and actually lobbying government ministers on their behalf.
• Following the investigation the commissioner found that Paterson had indeed been involved in a number of serious breaches of the code and recommended that parliament suspend the MP for 30 days – the which could have led to his being dropped by his constituency party, thus causing a by-election for his seat.
• On the day that the case was to have been debated in the Commons the government did two highly contentious things: first – in an attack on the Commission for Parliamentary Standards – they proposed ditching that venerable body completely and replacing it with a new one that would actually be considerably less independent and would be chaired by a tory. Secondly – on the grounds that it would be unfair to judge Paterson before the new body had been instigated – the charges against him were to be set aside.
• Prime Minister Johnson backed both motions heavily and spoke warmly in Paterson’s defence. A three-line whip was imposed on the vote which resulted in both measures being passed.
• The opposition parties refused to have anything to do with the new body and even a good number of tories were horrified by this blatant attempt to change the rules retrospectively. One junior minister was sacked for abstaining rather than voting for the measures (though later re-instated).
• That was the point at which I wrote my last post. What followed was much more encouraging – at least for those who are not supporters of the current regime in the UK.
• The following morning there was a huge outcry and even the tory supporting press decided that things had gone too far. In the face of this wave of criticism it was announced in the house that the vote in favour of replacing the standards commission would be set aside after all.
• Since there would now be no reason not to revert to the originally planned debate on Owen Paterson’s future Johnson did what he does best – betrayed his colleague and effectively threw Paterson under a bus – without even communicating the news of this abrupt U-turn to him. Paterson learned of the development through being asked a question by a reporter.
• Having by this stage had enough Paterson finally did the decent thing and resigned

The entire episode spoke to sleaze and shoddy self-interest (Johnson himself is the subject of several inquiries by the commission) and I suspect this one will run for some time.

I cannot think of a more appropriate party to which this could happen.