by Around 300 thefts will take place in Manchester today. Around 200 people in the city will be victims of violence, 100 of criminal damage or arson, and 30 of sexual offences. A fairly typical day, in other words – which is why more police are needed. And yet this week, we learn, no fewer than 12 Greater Manchester police officers are investigating something that is hardly a danger to politics or public safety: whether Angela Rayner filled in the election forms correctly several years ago .
This rise in political prosecution is one of the worst trends in British politics. It is the gotcha game that the police use as bets, thus draining resources that could be used much better. Politicians and activists accuse each other of minor legal violations that they hope will escalate into a resignation. The real aim is to evoke investigative theatrics, to cast their opponents as crooks. Rayner has now said she will resign as deputy Labor leader if police find out against her.
I want to trace this back to the honors money scandal two decades ago, which engulfed politics in a way no one thought possible. Angus MacNeill, a shaker, was elected SNP member for the Western Isles and was surprised to learn how many newly created Labor peers had given to the party. Isn’t this illegal, he asked? He found a law from 1925 that said so – the Honors (Prevention of Abuse) Act – and called it the Metropolitan Police. To everyone’s surprise, they took it seriously.
It was the scale of the investigation that followed that changed everything. The Met interviewed 136 people over 14 dramatic months. Dawn raids were carried out on the houses of assistants No. 10 and Tony Blair – who at the time seemed to be in a political rut – was the first prime minister to be interviewed as part of a criminal investigation. In the end, no one was charged – but it seemed to indicate a new trend. In the political spotlight, the police seem to deploy resources out of proportion to the level of crime.
Around the same time, the phone hacking scandal emerged but it was, well, small beer. A News of the World a reporter was jailed and his editor, Andy Coulson, resigned. But according to the information commissioner, the hack was considered roughly in the same bracket as a driving offence. When Coulson went on to serve as David Cameron’s turning doctor in No. 10, it would be a high-value political target if the hacking case could somehow be reheated. But how?
The police were quite thorough. They arrested hackers, took their tapes and found thousands of targets. It was all very horrible, but it was not – they were told – illegal. The law stated that if police could not prove in court that hackers had access to new voicemails (that is, messages not yet heard by the intended recipient), there was no offense. In the words of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) at the time: “To prove the prosecution’s criminal offence, the prosecution must prove that the message was actually intercepted before the intended recipient could reach it.”
That was Sir Keir Starmer. His advice meant that the scandal could not be reopened, which the law – as he pointed out – seemed to be obviously deficient. But what was the point of Labor campaigning on it? When did the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) change its advice under political pressure? The British legal system is supposed to not buckle, no matter how politically charged the case. But in the end, Starmer changed his advice – and thus facilitated the biggest criminal investigation ever. The Met was stunned.
The following year, his estranged wife accused Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, of asking her to take his speed points. This should be treated like any other suggestion of criminality. But Starmer treated it with almost historical significance, and came to make a televised statement when he decided to prosecute for perverting the course of justice.
No one, therefore, accused him of being a political party manoeuvre. No one imagined he would see himself as Labor prime minister. The SIP had nothing to do with politics since the post was created in 1879: the two worlds never collided.
Starmer now says his career was inspired by his politics and he started defending unions and activists and “didn’t forget where he came from” during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions. Perhaps this will become the norm, and we will see a new generation of prosecutors with Labor or Tory leanings. And to pick according to that standard. But for many in the legal world, our courts are trusted because they are seen to be above politics. Starmer’s career has been a challenge to that model.
He once wrote to a newspaper announcing that his colleagues in the PSC “do not shy away from prosecuting politicians”. An important principle. But police and prosecutors shouldn’t be happy to go after politicians, either: MPs should be treated like anyone else. If you set a precedent that the book will be thrown at them after even a small accusation, you will not be on a level playing field.
In vowing to resign if found guilty, Rayner is now following Starmer, who said he would resign as Labor leader if he was fined for illegally possessing curry during the lockdown . He did this to put pressure on Boris Johnson who was also being investigated but did not say he would resign. So this cranks the game up a few more notches: if a politician is found guilty of a minor offense, they quit. The incentive for politicians to keep accusing each other is greater – while the police are being called into action to determine careers as well.
No one argues that politicians should be immune from prosecution (as many are in France). Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband and former chief executive of the SNP, has been charged with embezzling funds from the Party. Scots will want to know that the police follow wherever the evidence leads. Murrell denies any wrongdoing.
But a look at America – where there are calls, depending on your politics, for Donald Trump or Joe Biden to go to jail – shows where this can lead.
British democracy has thrived for generations with voters, not lawyers, deciding who rises and falls. That’s something worth trying to save, if we still can.
