Boris Johnson put the slot machines of his parliamentary group to the test on Wednesday with a vote aimed at saving the neck of his friend, Conservative MP Owen Paterson. Despite having 80 more votes than the opposition, the government narrowly removed an amendment (250 versus 232) to suspend Paterson’s conviction for corrupt practices and change the rules of operation of the House Ethics Committee. Common The pressure of the last hours of public opinion and of the members of the Conservative Party themselves, incapable of defending a scandalous decision before the citizens, has forced Downing Street to return to one of its more and more habitual lurchings.
The body to monitor the behavior of parliamentarians had concluded that the conservative politician incurred in an “outrageous case of charges for the defense of private interests”, by providing advisory services and promoting the business of two companies before the Government and Parliament, Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods laboratories. He came to collect annually from both up to 120,000 euros. “He used his privileged position as a member of the House of Commons to secure benefits for two companies that had hired him as an advisor (…) He has brought disrepute to this Parliament,” the committee concluded in its devastating report.
The sanction proposal entailed a month’s suspension of employment and salary and the possibility of opening a local electoral process in the Paterson constituency for voters to decide if they wanted to replace him. The counterattack of the Johnson Government, which has already shown on more than one occasion that it has no qualms about changing the rules of the game when they go against it, was to present a parliamentary amendment to completely reform the operating rules of the Ethics Committee and suspend Paterson’s conviction. With a double argument, legal and compassionate. Downing Street claimed that the committee had not granted the person under investigation the possibility of recourse that ordinary justice does offer. And he also recalled that Paterson’s wife, Rose Paterson, 63, committed suicide last June, amid the parliamentary inquiries. “I lost my beloved wife, with whom I had been married for 40 years, and this investigation was a fundamental factor in that outcome,” the deputy said in his written response to the committee.
The amendment promoted by the Johnson administration had scandalized opposition parties, but more importantly, it had placed dozens of MPs from his party in a very embarrassing situation. By bending the law to save one of their own, many have remembered the infamous scandal of the mid-1990s, the so-called cash for questions (money in exchange for questions). The newspaper The Guardian He then revealed how several Conservative MPs were introducing questions in the parliamentary scrutiny session, at 2,000 pounds sterling (about 2,350 euros) the question, to further the interests of the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, owner of the Harrods department store. “Yesterday [por la votación del miércoles] we forget who we serve, who are none other than citizens. The way in which we have closed this matter conveys the feeling that we are only concerned with protecting our own ”, denounced Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, one of the dozens of tories who abstained or voted against the Executive’s amendment. “It was certainly a bad day for the Conservative government and for Parliament,” Ellwood concluded.
The Labor opposition has already announced its intention to boycott the parliamentary commission that must rewrite the rules of ethical control of deputies. “I am fed up with people taking detours and not calling all this with its correct name: corruption,” denounced the leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer. “Paterson was receiving money from a private company to introduce parliamentary issues on his behalf. He must go, he does not deserve to be a deputy ”. Randox is, among other activities, one of the companies that is making the most money with the mandatory tests that travelers who enter the United Kingdom must take on the second day of their arrival, despite having the complete vaccination schedule.
Paterson has shown no sign of regret for his behavior. He has said that he would do it again without any qualms and has publicly thanked Johnson for his support. The conservative government has even tried to finish off its task with the demand for the resignation of Kathryn Stone, the independent commissioner of Parliament for the investigation of the ethical behavior of the deputies. It is a position that lasts for five years, created precisely in the wake of the scandal of the mid-1990s. Conservatives accuse Stone of conducting “unprofessional” investigations. But no one is aware that his next pending investigation is that of the expensive decoration of the private Downing Street apartment commissioned by Johnson and his wife, Carrie, and which was financed with tens of thousands of euros from private donations to the Conservative Party.
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In the last hours, Johnson’s team has tried to rebuild an issue that has caused a larger fire than expected among the conservative ranks. The Eurosceptic Jacob Rees-Mogg, who the Prime Minister awarded his support with the position of Leader of the House of Commons (a position similar to the Spanish Secretary General for Relations with the Courts, but with the rank of Minister), justified the Wednesday the amendment with his usual cynicism: “Sometimes, to do good, it is necessary to endure a little disgrace.” Hours later, however, it has verified that the dishonor was deeper and more lasting than expected, and has begun to send signs of conciliation, so that the Paterson case is dissociated from the revision of the rules of ethics, and Government and opposition They can work in a bipartisan effort that gives legitimacy to that review. The conclusion of his words is that Downing Street will not modify the sanction imposed on Paterson, and will leave him alone, in exchange for saving the battered image of the prime minister.
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