You have no right to know the extent of Westminster's lobbying problem
Britain’s corporate lobbying industry is a powerful and pernicious tool. It enables the wealthy to bend policy to their will. In my last piece, I outlined how lobbyists shape and constitute our government. In this follow-up, we’re going to explore the rules and systems that shield the shady world of lobbying from your prying eyes.
Lenient lobbying rules & draconian defamation laws
If a system's purpose is what it does, then Britain's lobbying laws have a purpose. They enable lobbyists to operate without limits.
Scandals have recently engulfed David Cameron, Bill Crothers, Boris Johnson and Robert Jenrick. Every article on these scandals will say, “there is no suggestion of wrongdoing.” The general tone of the reporting suggests otherwise. There are two reasons for this:
Attesting to the weakness of Britain’s lobbying rules: no one in these scandals broke the law.
England has strict defamation laws. The publisher of any potentially libelous statement carries the burden of proof. This makes it easy for those accused of wrongdoing to threaten and silence their critics. It has contributed to the prevalence of “open secrets” in British public life.
The government already knows the solution to these problems. It commissioned two reports on lobbying. They recommend:
Extend the two-year lobbying ban for former government ministers.
Reform the rules to better capture informal forms of lobbying and the use
of alternative forms of communications.
Improving departmental reporting to increase the regularity and quality
of transparency data.
Make all of this legally binding.
After 18 months, only 7% of their recommendations had been implemented. That's 4 out of 57. None of the implemented recommendations are legally binding.
The government also knows how to stop lawsuits that threaten and exhaust journalists and watchdogs. It packaged those fixes up in a bill that was subsequently abandoned.
You might hope the new Labour government would care more about implementation. You’d be mistaken to think so. Labour has shown no interest in reviving libel reform. It's also telling journalists that the current lobbying rules are fine. It pleads technical compliance, saying “no rules were broken” and “that’s just the system that we have”, forgetting that it now makes the rules.
Narrowly defined rules
The Transparency of Lobbying Act requires consultants who lobby ministers to name their clients. It does not apply to non-ministers or opposition parties. In this year's general election, the incumbent government had collapsed. A Labour win was a foregone conclusion. This meant you could lobby, in near total secrecy, what you knew to be the incoming government.
Attentive Possibility Space readers will have noticed that this law only applies to “consultant” lobbyists. Consultants constitute around 1% of all lobbyists. Those working in-house for large corporations, the vast majority, are exempt. This is why David Cameron didn't break any laws: he was an employee of the firm he lobbied for, not a consultant.
It’s hardly rocket science (it’s almost as if successive governments haven’t really wanted to solve this problem) but I propose that:
These rules should apply to all lobbyists, not just consultant lobbyists.
All lobbying and transparency rules should apply to all parties, not just the government.
We should not only rely on lobbyists to self-report. Lobbied parties should provide the same level of transparency.
Under Ed Miliband, Labour actually did this. Under Starmer, they refuse to.
Thresholds and loopholes
Britain's transparency rules say a donation is only of public interest if it's worth more than a certain amount. A lobbyist can give an MP £1,499, and their local association £2,229, without declaring it. That's still true if they give to dozens of MPs and associations. It's a neat way to donate hundreds of thousands to political parties without declaring a penny. You have no right to know this but, thanks to Ethan Shone, we do know that lobbyists are already taking advantage of this loophole.
Shone bases much of his reporting on LinkedIn: the social media site where lobbyists self-promote between client pitches. In doing so, they reveal too much. Shone pokes fun at Britain's toothless anti-lobbying rules. On a recent podcast, he called LinkedIn “the unofficial third arm of the lobbying and transparency regime.”
Given public trust in politicians is at a 40 year low I would recommend significantly lowering, or even abolishing, this threshold. We should also explore public funding of political campaigns in order to shield our politics from the hidden exercise of power and influence.
It’s a big (cricket) club, and you ain’t in it
In a healthy democracy the press hold the government to account when it fails to behave. They expose malign influence and weak character.
The British press is committed to defeating lobbyists… in a manner of speaking. They fielded a full team at this year's “Hacks vs Flaks” (Journalists vs Lobbyists) cricket match, organized by lobbyist Charles Lewington. Lewington provided free taxis, free food, and an open bar for attendees and their families.
The press maintains a similarly friendly relationship with our politicians. This is more defensible than cosiness with lobbyists. Journalists must cultivate sources, after all. But, it's clear that they often give politicians an easy ride.
Keir Starmer recently showed how this chumminess harms our democracy. Pressed by Sky News' Beth Rigby on his conduct in the "freebiegate" scandal, Starmer shot back:
And Beth I might just gently say. Sky invite us to quite a lot of hospitality events. Your Summer Party is a great party costing thousands of pounds and you invite me every year. Presumably you want politicians to continue to come. That’s how politics [works].
This threat, to limit press access if they ask tough questions about lobbying, can be translated to: “Beth. Do you want to bust this whole thing wide open? Because we’re all up to our necks in it.”
Overworked and underfunded journalists
In defense of Britain’s journalists, it’s not like they’ve been set up for success. Their budgets have been cut. Studies suggest their employers focus too much on breaking news and churnalism, at the expense of investigations.
To solve systemic problems we’ve got to be tough on systems while being gentle with one another. Under severe financial and time pressures, the British press does the exact opposite. They focus on dodgy individuals, ignoring the systems that drive their behavior. As a result, they often miss the bigger picture which, to be fair, is far costlier to investigate.
This year’s biggest British lobbying scandal was "Freebiegate." Lord Alli was its icon. He gave tens of thousands in gifts to top Labour politicians. This made headlines for months. Meanwhile Labour receiving £14.5 million from companies and individuals went largely unnoticed. Editors find photos of fancy clothes and Taylor Swift concerts more captivating. Plus, they're easier to report than the minutes of secret meetings.
The story of Kevin Craig is another example of the British press missing the forest for the trees. Craig’s 15 minutes of infamy came when he bet against himself in this year’s general election. This story was splashed all over the place but almost nobody picked up on the real scandal.
Craig is the founder of the lobbying firm PLMR. Their clients include private schools, private healthcare firms and a scandal-plagued care home provider. Craig gave £100k to Labour and pledged a further £39k to Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Labour chose Craig as a candidate from a shortlist of one.
The good people of Central Suffolk and North Ipswich had a choice: Labour's Kevin Craig or the Conservative Patrick Spencer. His dad donated £250k to the party. Spencer, the son of Daddy Bigbucks, won out.
Two candidates, a Labour lobbyist and a Tory nepo-baby, appeared to buy their way onto the ballot. It's a total indictment of how this country operates. And it flew under the radar of a press that wrote instead about a small change betting scandal.
Conclusion
Political lobbying is rampant in the UK. But, due to poor regulation, you have no right to know about it. Compounding the issue, most of the British press won't investigate lobbying. They lack the tools, the time and the interest. The recommendations in this article could help. But despite their pledges I doubt this self described “private sector Labour government” will implement them.
Acknowledgements
This article would not be possible without the work of:
Ethan Shone, the best Kremlinologist currently working in Westminster.
Shone’s substack is a must-read. But, you likely know this if you've clicked the citations in this piece.
Vital and dangerously under-resourced, openDemocracy is more effective than Parliament's transparency regime. You can support their work here.