A confidential document prepared by CT Group, the powerful lobbying firm run by Lynton Crosby, which advises Boris Johnson, and which I have seen, does not reveal the defense prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords. The document suggests Johnson will defend every convention and standard of decency in a bid to secure political candidates who will vote for the Tory government, especially its bill to repudiate the international treaty it has signed on Northern Ireland. This draft plan to add 39 to 50 new Tory peers includes an emergency requirement for each new peer to sign away their right to judge their own legislation on legislation brought before them. They must give, says the paper, a written commitment to attend and vote with the government. The plan also legalizes simple bribery. In a throwback to the Old Corruption that characterized the Tories of the 19th century, compliant lords will be “rewarded” with lucrative special envoy posts and absentees will be punished with “name and shame”. list, CBE and additional titles will be awarded, responding to a seemingly insatiable demand for the already ennobled to be showered with additional honors beyond their peers. But the cynicism of Crosby’s paper sinks to new depths when it describes what it calls “useful cover from any media backlash.” The perpetrators of this coup will claim, quite falsely, that their real aim is to redress the balance between the South East, which has the largest number of peers, and the North of England, Scotland and Wales, which are under-represented, as if the award of peerages is a genuine form of ascendancy. The paper also suggests that the “perfect excuse” to flood the House of Lords with Johnson’s cronies will be the Lords’ doubts about a hard Brexit, “on the grounds that ‘People’s Brexit’ can only be achieved with such wedge of young Tories’. This, he says, will provide an “excellent cover” for the rail promotion of nominations. The report is also useful cover for Crosby, whose company has had close links to the tobacco industry, when he states that the creation of Tory peers is also justified by the Lords’ refusal so far to vote for a “laissez-faire attitude to tobacco companies and importers’. The media, according to the Crosby firm’s paper, can easily be blinded by the appointment of a few controversial figures or well-known celebrities, which will distract journalists from the real issue, which is the enormity of the phenomenon. One of the House of Lords’ claims to existence is that it is a review chamber, willing to take an independent view and provide expertise on a non-partisan basis. but the plot of the Crosby company would negate the appointment of such independent peers. Polls show that this plan would be opposed by the public: 71% of Britons support reforming the House of Lords, and opposition to the current Lords is as strongly felt among Conservative and Labor voters, among the rest as and of those leaving and in the south as well. like the north. Support for the second chamber fell to 12% of the public. And with more than half of the British public believing that the House of Lords is not working, the solution is to reform the Lords, not strengthen its unrepresentativeness. The Crosby company paper unwittingly attempts this radical revision. It is not “clear” why most of the Lords members were appointed, he says. Tory ministers in the Lords are ‘inadequate’ with ‘little to offer’. The Lords leader is “a poor political manager”. All of this raises deep questions about what the current appointments system has created and calls into question the unfettered support of the prime minister who alone can recommend appointments to the Queen. Previous Prime Ministers have realized that there must be limits to the use of this power, and Tony Blair and I have refused to submit the traditional list of resignation prices, the abuse of which has tarnished the reputations of some former Prime Ministers. There are, of course, many worthy, dedicated and diligent members of the House of Lords who are to be commended for doing what is best for the country and whose contribution to public life argues for a reformed second House. But Johnson’s latest attempt to manipulate the Lords system is the culmination of years of constitutional vandalism, during which he and his predecessors were shameless in appointing Conservative party donors, rewarding them for what they did to promote a narrow partisan interest, not the wider public interest. Since 2010, successive prime ministers have elevated nine of the party’s former treasurers, each of whom donated at least £3 million to the party before their nomination. This included Johnson’s cheerleader Peter Cruddas, whose candidacy Johnson promoted even after he was found unfit by the independent House of Lords Appointments Committee. “Once you pay your £3 million you get your peerage,” said a former Conservative party chairman. Money talks, and nowhere more so than with the Lords. Twenty-two of the party’s biggest donors – who together have given £54m to the Conservatives – have become lords since 2010. Not only do these 22 have look-alikes but, as a top Tory donor, Mohamed Amersy, confirmed this week , when he spoke of “Access to Capitalism,” large cash donations give “a privileged few unrivaled access to decision-makers,” adding “as I fear … an implied or expressed quid pro quo” that “undermines our democracy.” It proposes “a new source of funding that would undermine the current system of the privileged few gaining access”. Indeed, the party’s chief fundraiser and co-chairman, Ben Elliott, says he has taken “access capitalism to a new level within the party” without any proper transparency, which is why he is appropriately known as Mr Access All Areas. And now we know of inquiries involving members of the House of Lords for fast-tracking lucrative Covid contracts. I tried in 2008 to push through a major reform of the Lords, but we were defeated – as in previous attempts – by the combined weight of peers who are not in favor of any reform, those who found reason to disagree with our particularities. proposed reform and those who claim that the only acceptable reform is complete abolition. Now is the time to clarify who really wants change and who doesn’t. The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 stated that the power of the House of Lords was only an interim solution until a second chamber constituted on a popular rather than a hereditary basis was put into operation. More than a century later, the modern constitution envisioned then still eludes us. Abolishing the current House of Lords was one of 10 pledges Keir Starmer made when he took over as Labor leader. Now Boris Johnson and Lyndon Crosby have handed him the strongest possible case for overdue reform.
Gordon Brown was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 to 2010 Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, please email it to us at [email protected]
