The House | Sick of sleaze: why Labour are paying for failure to restore trust to politics

4 min read8 min

The irony is that the Labour Party acknowledged the importance of driving up standards, not just in their pre-election words and promises but in terms of the legislative and tangible changes that are required to deliver it. The bad news is they only decided to move beyond the warm words when it was too late.

The recent local election results reflect the scale of public disillusionment. After years of political misconduct, sleaze allegations, lockdown parties, murky financial arrangements, and a revolving door of scandal-hit ministers, drastic change was needed. Labour’s central promise was to restore the dignity and trustworthiness that Westminster had squandered so recklessly under the Conservatives.

A little under two years on and Keir Starmer’s already beleaguered premiership is under threat, in part, to a scandal of his own making thanks to his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington. Governing in the post-Brexit era with increased global economic and political uncertainty was never going to be easy but the basic pre-election promises of improved integrity and stability are already disintegrating before our eyes.

The tragedy is that trust, once broken, is extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. Political capital is not like financial capital in that you cannot simply replenish it through smarter budgeting. It requires consistent and real action, genuine reform, and the visible dismantling of the structures that enabled misconduct in the first place.

Labour spoke a lot about restoring trust in our politics, pre-election. However, it was only following the Mandelson revelations that the Prime Minister commissioned the newly-formed Ethics and Integrity Commission to conduct a review into our laws concerning lobbying, disclosure and access to government. It may well be that the Commission’s recommendations end up in the inbox of a new leader. Whoever that may be would be foolish to ignore them.

Reforming the Lobbying Act – the rules that address transparency in who is seeking to influence the policy-making process – now sits at the very heart of building back public trust, for all parties and all politicians. The CIPR is supporting Baroness Hayter with her Private Members’ Bill in the Lords that seeks to expand the lobbying register to in-house lobbyists, demonstrating the breadth of support for change from within Parliament itself and the recognition that the status quo is no longer sustainable.

Lobbying and the relationship between business and politics now occupies a unique space in the public imagination. They are sympathetic and supportive of the idea that government needs real-world input when making policy – as long as it is done fairly and with a degree of transparency.

The existing Lobbying Act, introduced in 2014, makes that nearly impossible and has long been criticised as inadequate and riddled with loopholes. It covers a narrow band of consultant lobbyists while leaving vast swathes of activity in the shadows, unregulated and unscrutinised. For a public already primed to distrust Westminster, this gap is populated with mistrust and scepticism.

Overhauling the Lobbying Act would send an unambiguous signal and demonstrate that this government is prepared to take action to ensure the lobbying scandals of recent years cannot be repeated. It would also send a powerful message that our politics cannot and should not be influenced opaquely. Expanding the register of lobbyists, strengthening enforcement mechanisms and closing the loopholes that mean in-house lobbyists have no way of statutorily recording their activities is the basic architecture of a democracy in which power is exercised visibly, and accountability is genuine rather than performative.

Labour must understand the urgency of the moment. They need quick and decisive wins, and soon, and few come easier than this. It also has the added bonus of commanding overwhelming support in Parliament and beyond, including within the lobbying industry.

Fail to grab the opportunity and this government risks not just its own electoral future, but the deeper, more corrosive consequence of a democracy in which citizens have simply stopped believing that the rules apply equally to everyone.

Alastair McCapra is CEO of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations