This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
License [2]: Creative Commons 4.0 - Attributions/No Derivities/Int'l.
------------------------
On transparency, like so much else, the UK government is shifting the goalposts
By: []
Date: 2021-11
As someone well acquainted with the UK government’s belligerent reactions to requests for information, I found the official reaction to openDemocracy’s scathing report into transparency at the heart of Westminster entirely predictable.
“Complete nonsense” was the verdict from Whitehall following the publication of the report that highlighted how 2020 was the worst year on record since the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was introduced in 2005.
Few would have expected anything but such a response from a government that is clearly determined to ensure a cloak of secrecy around its centre. This is a government that appears to be of the opinion that rules apply only to those outside of the Tory party. After all, if you don’t like the rules, then you can just move the goalposts. It could be FOI, the Northern Ireland protocol or, say, the Commons Standards Committee.
What is clear, and what openDemocracy’s ‘Access Denied’ report highlighted, was the sheer scale of this government’s attack on the Freedom of Information Act and the wider implications for British democracy as a whole.
Boris Johnson: Don't water down sleaze rules for MPs, strengthen them instead Sign this petition to demand that the UK government adopt the recommendations of numerous independent bodies that rules about MPs’ behaviour should be tightened so that we can drive dark money out of our politics. And object to proposals to weaken the parliamentary sleaze watchdog. Sign the petition
The report was a fascinating accompaniment to my own experience, in which I have witnessed deliberate and ongoing obfuscation in a blatant undermining of the FOI Act.
My own story started in the spring of 2019. At the time, I was on the front bench for the SNP in Westminster, working on affairs concerning the Cabinet Office. Press reports at the time suggested the UK government had, over the past year, spent a chunk of change on researching the attitudes of people living in Scotland regarding the constitution. As you could imagine, the results of such research would be very much of interest not only to my party, but to anyone engaged in the debate surrounding Scottish independence. So, I asked the Cabinet Office what it had found.
What I received was silence.
[END]
[1] Url:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/freedom-of-information/on-transparency-like-so-much-else-the-uk-government-is-shifting-the-goalposts/
[2] url:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
OpenDemocracy via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/
