Angela Eagle: The Tories have broken their promises on political reform

David Cameron has reinforced the political power of a few big money donors and well established vested interests, argues the shadow leader of the Commons. Now that his grassroots have taken flight he is even more reliant on the privileged few he uses his power to support.

By Angela Eagle

(Photo By Conservative party conference. Photo: Getty)

At their coming conference the Tories apparently plan to announce that their membership has risen. The problem is that it hasn’t. Since David Cameron was elected it is estimated a staggering 118,600 members have fled the Party, a number equivalent to the population of Tunbridge Wells.

Today I’ve written to Grant Shapps to urge him to come clean on Tory membership. Instead of falsely inflating the numbers by adding in ‘friends’ and ‘supporters’ as it is reported he will do, he should own up and reveal the true scale of Dave Cameron’s lost army of Conservative members.

This latest attempt to pull the wool over the public’s eyes says it all about the Tories and their broken promises on political reform. They have failed to reform their own party, failed to reform our politics, and are now fiddling the figures to cover it up.

Before the election David Cameron promised he was going to “fix” our broken politics. He opined about the problem of a few donors buying influence. He said he was going to shine the “light of transparency on lobbying in our country”.

But the second he stepped over the threshold of Number Ten, he reverted to Tory type and started doing the complete opposite.

Latest figures show that hedge funds have given the Tories a staggering £45.7 million. Hedge funds have been given a tax cut worth £145 million. This year alone £5 million has been donated to the Tories by people who had private dinners with the PM and senior ministers. And the Lobbying Act was just a Trojan horse for an attack on charities and campaigners while lobbying was made less transparent, not more.

On every test he set himself, David Cameron has failed. He hasn’t built a better politics, he’s done all he can to reinforce the political power of a few big money donors and well established vested interests. Now that his grassroots have taken flight he is even more reliant on the privileged few he uses his power to support.

In Labour, we don’t just talk about political reform, we have put our money where our mouth is. We’ve implemented a root and branch reform of our membership structure to ensure that we reach out to millions of working people around the UK. We have written our policy programme with the input of hundreds of thousands of people. We’ve travelled the country talking to people who don’t vote about why, and we have come up with a comprehensive programme of political reform that we will implement in government. This includes reform of our legislative system and giving the public a say at PMQs, a universal register of all professional lobbyists backed by a code of conduct and sanctions, and a comprehensive devolution of power from Whitehall to local communities.

During my People’s Politics Inquiry I met Karina, a young mum who has never voted. She told me that politics turns her off because all she sees is a Government that helps their mates at the top. She’s not the only one who feels like that. Voter turnout has been in decline for decades, and active involvement in politics is in decline too.

If the Tories want to rebuild trust in politics they must start by being open about the state of their membership. But, much more importantly, they need to stop talking about political reform and start acting.

The choice between Labour and the Tories is clear. A hollowing-out Tory Party who want to keep political power in the hands of a few. Or a vibrant Labour movement, who want to put power back in the hands of the country.