Failure of the inability to combat confidence in political risks that undermine its entire program

“Confidence has dropped Boris Johnson and the last conservative government. If the Labor Party does not start to rebuild confidence, and soon, then he could go in the same direction.

Shaun Roberts is Director of Campaigns and Digital, Unlock Democracy

2021 was the start of the end of Boris Johnson and the start of Keir Starmers March in power. But for a large part of 2021, things seemed very different, the Conservatives having a 10-point lead with Yougov until mid-October. What has changed all this?

The big news in October 2021 was the lobby scandal of Owen Paterson. Conservative deputy Owen Paterson was found by the parliamentary commissioner with standards which violated the paid plea rules and was suspended from the municipalities for 30 days. This should have been that, but the conservative government under Boris Johnson chose to support its disgrace deputy and tried to overthrow the system of standards to save it from the suspension.

It took a backlash of the conservative deputies of the background to persuade the government to change its way, but the damage was caused. The voters had seen a ugly side of the conservative government and the first survey taken after the resignation of the parliament paters showed a 12 -point work lead – the largest manager of the work survey since July 2013.

A month later, almost until the day, the Partygate scandal struck and the work led in each survey for the rest of the parliament. Liz Truss came and transformed a healthy place of work into unbearable. But rot started with confidence.

The new government seems to have forgotten it.

In opposition, the Labor Party has made promises to introduce an independent ethics and integrity commission to improve standards, to restrict the second jobs for deputies and to issue a significant reform of the Chamber of Lords, not only by removing hereditary peers. They rightly spoken against cronyism, Sleaze and corruption.

Keir Starmer could not have been clearer when he said that the Westminster system was part of the problem. But 8 months after the elections, we saw very little action to support the difficult discourse that we heard in the opposition.

The new government has been assaulted with Sleaze stories and bad behavior. Although these are not on a party-scale scale, they continue to trust in our policy. The research carried out by more in common during the first 100 days of government power highlighted the damage that Freebiegate has made to trust.

All this is reflected in the polls. As we write this, the last 12 surveys published, the reform conducted in 8 of them. The work survey notes are barely half of what they were a year ago.

Maybe it's time for a different approach.

Did not say that the government should divert its attention from the reparation of the economy, the reconstruction of the NHS, or the crisis in Ukraine exacerbated by President Trump.

Said that if people cannot trust the political system and the policy that it gives us, then it affects everything that the government is trying to do. Last week, I attended a meeting with residents of an area of ​​council in Luton to talk about democracy. What I heard there was repeated in similar sessions across the country. The message is clear – our political system does not work. He does not need to tinker on the edges, he needs a large -scale change.

This is what people hoped and expected when the work won the general elections. And it is not too late to meet these hopes!

If people do not trust the system, they will not listen to leaders even when they say something true and important. If they do not trust the system, they will turn to more extreme parties which promise a radical but damaging reform, in the sense of what saw President Trump.

It is time for the government to do more than recognize the failures of our system. It's time to act.

Here are three ways to do it that hardly cost money and very little government time:

1. Set up the promised commission of ethics and independent integrity, restrict the second jobs of deputies and prohibit gifts for deputies and ministers.
2. Get a lot of money out of our policy – Stop foreign donations and limit the size of the donations. The most important voices of a democracy should be the voters, not the richest and the most powerful.
3. Deliver a serious reform of the Chamber of Lords – Yes, hereditary peers do not have room in a modern parliament, but friends, donors and people named by the party either. The work should deliver what they have promised in their manifesto – replacing the Lord's House with a second alternative chamber more representative of the regions and the nations.

We could continue because so much is broken in our political system. People can see it. In opposition, work could see it. When people do not trust the political system, they are much more likely to turn on those who fail to act.

Confidence has dropped Boris Johnson and the last conservative government. If the Labor Party does not start to rebuild confidence, and soon, then he could go in the same direction.

Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons