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LONDON. – The United Kingdom’s ruling Conservative Party has been accused of corruption after backing a colleague who broke paid lobbying rules.
MPs in the House of Commons voted by 250 to 232 on Wednesday against a 30-day suspension of Owen Paterson, a move that was recommended by the chamber’s standards committee.
The watchdog had determined that Paterson committed an “egregious case of paid advocacy” by repeatedly using his position to promote two companies, which together paid him nearly three times his annual parliamentary salary.
But when MPs were asked to endorse his suspension, a group of Conservatives, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s support, put forward a proposal to instead delay it and set up a new committee to review the Commons’ disciplinary process.
Yesterday, Johnson’s government announced it was backtracking on its plans to overhaul the system for combating parliamentary corruption after a backlash which included his adviser on ethics calling it a “damaging moment” for democracy.
Opposition parties angered by the proposal said prior to the U-turn that the rules were being changed because the government did not support Paterson’s suspension, a move they said would damage public trust in parliament.
Some MPs shouted “shame” as the result of Wednesday’s vote was read out.
There was also disquiet among some on the governing benches. Of the 361 Conservative MPs in parliament, more than 100 either voted against or abstained.
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer denounced Wednesday’s move by Conservative MPs as “corruption”.
“Tory [Conservative] MPs voted to let off one of their own,” he said in an opinion piece published in the Guardian newspaper, before accusing the party of “wallowing in sleaze”.
Starmer singled out Johnson for particular criticism.
“The rot starts at the top. We have a prime minister whose name is synonymous with sleaze, dodgy deals and hypocrisy,” he said.
Paterson, who has said the stress of the investigation contributed to his wife’s suicide last year, disputes the standards committee’s findings and said witnesses who came forward to support him were not spoken to.
“The process I was subjected to did not comply with natural justice,” he said in a statement. “After two years of hell, I now have the opportunity to clear my name.” – Al Jazeera
Online Reporter