Sir John Major has launched a searing attack on the government over its handling of the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal, condemning its actions as “shameful and wrong”. The former prime minister said it suggested Boris Johnson’s administration was “politically corrupt”, and that Major would be posed with a dilemma if he had to consider voting for Johnson to remain PM at the next election. The comments came after the government briefly tried to shield Paterson from punishment for what the standards committee called an “egregious case” of breaching lobbying rules.
Major told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think the way the government handled that was shameful, wrong and unworthy of this or indeed any government. It also had the effect of trashing the reputation of parliament.” MPs had been due on Wednesday to vote on the Tory MP’s 30-day Commons suspension for advocating on behalf of two companies, which paid him more than £100,000 a year between them. But Downing Street instead backed an amendment suspending the punishment and creating a new standards body with a built-in Tory majority. The following day, after intense criticism, the government performed a U-turn – turning its back on the amendment after it had passed through the House of Commons. Paterson, a former Northern Ireland and environment secretary, announced his resignation shortly afterwards. Major called this attempt to protect Paterson “profoundly un-Conservative” and something he disliked “intensely”. He also said the action of the current administration was “damaging at home and to our reputation overseas”. The former PM said what happened this week wasn’t the only time Johnson’s government had behaved in an “un-Conservative” way – and that he had been concerned for some time. One example he gave was how announcements are often leaked to sections of the press before MPs are informed; another was the handling of Brexit – particularly the decision to override elements of the Brexit deal. He said: “There is a general whiff of ‘We are the masters now’ about their behaviour.” An enraged Major added: “I’m afraid that the government, with their over-large majority, do tend to treat parliament with contempt. And if that continues, it will end badly.
“They bypass parliament at will and the speaker has expressed his frustration about that on many occasions, and rightly so. But they also behaved badly in other ways that are perhaps politically corrupt.” Major is no stranger to sleaze, given the scandals that engulfed his own government back in the 1990s, such as cash for questions. “[The sleaze] was immensely damaged or damaging and it was embarrassing. It hurt the government. It hurt parliament. It involved a relatively small number of people who misbehaved, the worst of which was ‘cash for questions’. There was no excuse for that.” But he said the crucial difference is the way he handled it. “When that happened I set up the Nolan committee on standards in public life to stop it, which has been a huge success. The striking difference is this: in the 1990s I set up a committee to tackle this sort of behaviour. “Over the last few days we have seen today’s government trying to defend this sort of behaviour. Sleaze is unacceptable, was unacceptable when I was there, and I suffered a great deal of pain and anguish over it … It needs to be stopped.”