Lobbying scandal: heckled in Parliament, Boris Johnson admits a “mistake”

Heckled in Parliament after two weeks of lobbying scandal, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday admitted a “mistake” but blamed the opposition for “constant attacks” on corruption.

Weakened in the polls, the head of the Conservative government repeated his regrets before the heads of the main parliamentary committees, who pressed him with questions in the wake of his – abortive – attempt to intervene to avoid sanctions against an elected Conservative put involved for lobbying.

“The intention was not to exonerate anyone”, but to see “if there was a way where, in a transpartisan way, we could improve the system”, affirmed Boris Johnson during this exercise often delicate.

The confrontation with the opposition had started at midday, during a very lively weekly questioning session in front of the deputies, during which the Prime Minister was called to order very curtly by the President of the House of Commons .

Faced with the opposition calling him a “coward”, Boris Johnson admitted to having made a “mistake” by wanting to “combine an individual case” with the government’s desire to change the disciplinary rules for MPs.

He retorted, however, that the UK was “one of the cleanest democracies in the world”.

“These constant attacks on the levels of corruption and favoritism in the UK are doing a huge disservice to the billions of people around the world who genuinely suffer from corrupt governments,” he said.

“When someone in my party behaves badly, I exclude him. When someone in his party behaves badly, he tries to get him out of the situation,” said Labor chief Keir Starmer, demanding an apology .

Income-generating activities

On Tuesday evening, Boris Johnson drew up a proposal to reform the parliamentary code of conduct to prohibit MPs from being paid as political consultants or lobbyists, a vague wording that raised doubts about the real scope of the measure. He also wants to ensure that any parallel activity carried out by a deputy does not interfere with his parliamentary tasks.

These proposals were adopted Wednesday evening in the House of Commons, the lower house of the British Parliament, which rejected a few moments earlier the text of the Labor opposition, which went further.

Many elected officials have indeed expressed their opposition to a total ban on second jobs, which Boris Johnson is not in favor of either, believing that this external experience also benefited Parliament.

This start of change comes after numerous revelations about the lobbying activities of conservative deputies or second highly remunerative jobs carried out by the latter despite their electoral mandate.

At the origin of this case, a parliamentary inquiry concluding that the elected Conservative Owen Paterson had repeatedly lobbied members of the government to defend two companies for which he acted as a paid consultant.

Believing that this was a “flagrant” violation of the rules governing lobbying, the commission recommended its suspension for 30 days. When the government gave up trying to change the rules to spare him, Owen Paterson resigned as an MP.

He undoubtedly broke the rules, said Boris Johnson on Wednesday, which he defended himself for wanting to minimize. “It is extraordinary that ‘parliamentary’ colleagues behave in this way,” he told the heads of committees.

Boris Johnson himself faces questions about a luxurious vacation abroad, the costly renovation of his company apartment or his government’s dangerous links with the business community, including in the awarding of contracts to individuals. private companies in the context of the pandemic.

For its part, the press has scrutinized the activities of the deputies and multiplied the revelations on those, often highly paid, that they exercise in parallel.

Thus, Geoffrey Cox, former attorney general responsible for providing legal advice to the government, found himself implicated for his lucrative advisory activities in a tax haven, the British Virgin Islands.

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