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Here's how UKIP would clean up Westminster's act on lobbying
The news that a Conservative MP and three lords have been stung in
cash for questions investigations is the latest allegation of dodgy dealings in British politics, writes UKIP Leader Nigel Farage.
It has shown us that Westminster has come on little since the Tory sleaze of the John Major years and makes us ask the fundamental question as to whether our political system can ever be clear of closed-room deals where legislators take backhanders.
The allegations logged this weekend could be considered minor in scope. None has the power to really affect policy, merely tinkering around the edges. If you want real political corruption then you have to look to Brussels, where legislation that matters is drafted. In Westminster, lobbyists are scrabbling for crumbs from the legislative cake.
It is Brussels where the size and the ingredients of that cake are laid out. With more than 3,000 specialist European commission committees and advisory groups, whose makeup is a closely guarded secret but includes industry and NGO representatives, if we want to really clean up politics maybe our focus should be across the Channel.
That of course in no way excuses the behaviour of our MP and peers, nor the inability of the Westminster nexus to muck out the mess from its own stables. The essence of the problem is that the major political parties are in hock to the lobbies.
Be it corporate lobbies on the part of the Tories and the Lib Dems or union lobbies on the part of Labour, the main parties have ceased to be mass membership organisations. And as the cost of campaigning has rocketed, so has their reliance on big money.
One only has to saunter around their annual conferences to see how they are no longer parties driven by the concerns of ordinary people but have become glitzy corporate events, sponsored by plc this and conglomerate that. The sight of class warriors appearing on stage with the bosses of companies such as Capita and Atos has become the norm.
So the actions of individual peers and MPs must been viewed in that context - not as aberrations but as actors on the edge of a far bigger stage. The political class is in it for the money. Maybe not always for personal preferment, but the tide of cash that flows into politics surely runs through the smaller tributaries too.
It seems that the only response from Westminster is to have a three-party trialogue on an official list of lobbyists. This will be almost impossible to define, as any private citizen or small group could be listed and we would end up with a mass of statutory interference in the way politicians relate to the public.
A better idea being floated is for recall, where byelections could be forced on elected politicians: if an MP, say, has offended, broken rules or brought shame on British politics, the party machines or voting public should be able to force a resignation. This idea is one whose time has surely come, but is being met with anguished opposition from the political class.
Here's how Ukip would clean things up. First, all lobbying and donations to politicians should be clearly registered, as they are in the US. There, if a member of the house is in close co-operation with a business in their constituency, everybody knows about it and can vote with that knowledge in mind. It is clean and above board and means that there is nothing underhand and no shame attached to political donations. The mood here is to enforce taxpayer funding of politics, something that would be an utter abuse of the public purse and should not for a moment be countenanced.
Second is the notion of proper recall. Within Ukip, if 20% of the registered electors in any ward or constituency over a period of six weeks, sign a petition calling into question the office of an elected representative, a byelection must be held. It is true accountability - and not just a means to ensure the ultimate say is held by the represented not the representative, but to act as a deterrent for any malpractice. No ifs, no buts. Those who annoy their electorate must feel their wrath.