Our democracy is under threat

Last night, Conservative MPs voted to rip up the rules to protect one of their own. 

Conservative MP Owen Paterson had been found guilty of breaching paid advocacy rules for accepting £100,000 a year from a private firm to lobby the Government on their behalf. The independent Parliamentary Standards Commissioner said his breaches “were so serious and so numerous” that they risked trust in public office. They recommended he be suspended from Parliament for six weeks.

Instead of accepting the result, the Government tried to change the rules to get him off the hook. They only backed down today because of the huge public outcry.

This whole sorry affair has shown what this Government is willing to do if they think they can get away with it. If we’re going to stop the backsliding of democracy we need to be primed and ready to push back against this Government each and every time they attempt to undermine it.

With thousands of ordinary people’s support, Good Law Project has already been fighting hard to expose this Government’s sleaze and its attempts to undermine our democracy:

• We’re exposing the companies Ministers allowed to jump the queue to access multi-million pound PPE and testing contracts. After months of battle, we’ve finally forced Government to release the names of the 47 PPE VIP firms – and they’re due to drop later this month.
• We’re challenging Government parachuting their mates into top public sector jobs. 
• We’re defending independent bodies from being captured by Ministers.
  

But there is so much more to do.

We are not willing to accept that it’s one rule for Conservative MPs and one rule for everyone else. We know you won’t either. 

Going up against the significant resources of the state is not easy. It will take all of us chipping in what we can. If you’re in a position to support our work, you can do so here.