Brexit poses some real risks to the UK’s ability to reduce corruption (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

The UK has dropped three places to 11th in the latest report on corruption levels around the world.

And while the news largely focused on the US’ drop of four points, we cannot ignore that the UK has become more corrupt too.

As the UK heads into tricky political and economic territory with Brexit, the question is whether this could be the beginning of a steady and worrying downward slide.

World’s most corrupt countries revealed – and it’s not looking good for the U.S.

It’s a well observed trend that as the economy tightens, ethical standards slip. Meanwhile, the impact of austerity on some of the UK’s advisory bodies, cuts to the police and Crown Prosecution Service, mean that UK corruption and fraud is currently unlikely to get investigated, let alone prosecuted.




And make no mistake, despite the UK’s general complacency about not being a corrupt country, there is plenty of it about. A former advisor to the prime minister back in late 2017 wrote about the ‘endemic’ corruption in the UK’s planning system.

‘In every corner of the country, you can find stories of bribery, with local councillors and officials rigging the planning process for their own gain,’ he said.

Things aren’t so rosy at the top either. An EU review of the UK in 2018 found serious weaknesses in the systems for holding top government officials – ministers, special advisors and senior civil servants – to account.

The review said that these systems were essentially based on ‘self-regulation and reputational damage’ with complete power invested in the prime minister as to whether to take action or not

The government has yet to beef up the independence and powers of bodies who could police conflicts of interest and revolving doors at the top.

The UK’s role in acting as a haven or a conduit for money stolen from rampant public corruption in other countries is well known and causes widespread anger there. If this was properly taken into account, the UK would likely sit a whole lot lower in the ranking.

Cleaning up political party and campaign finance meanwhile, which is also desperately needed – especially in light of alleged abuses during the Brexit Referendum by Arron Banks in his funding of the Leave.EU campaign, which are strenuously denied – is nowhere in sight.

Brexit poses some real risks to the UK’s ability to reduce corruption. Not only is the government and Parliament’s focus completely diverted, but there is also a danger that if the UK sets out to show it’s open to investment wherever it comes from, slashes regulations accordingly, and rushes to secure trade deals with some of the least savoury and often most corrupt regimes in the world, things could get a whole lot worse.

But the Corruption Perceptions Index raises another really important question.

It only measures perceptions of corruption in public services. A lot of people are asking why it isn’t measuring the UK’s broader impact on international corruption and what the Index would look like if it took into account the amount of corrupt money laundered through a country, or the amount of bribes its companies paid?

The UK’s role in acting as a haven or a conduit for money stolen from rampant public corruption in other countries is well known and causes widespread anger there. If this was properly taken into account, the UK would likely sit a whole lot lower in the ranking.



And it might sit a bit lower still if the UK’s offshore tax havens such as Jersey and the British Virgin Islands, which otherwise don’t appear in the index, were included in the UK ranking.

Transparency International UK itself estimated in December 2018 that £250 billion worth of fraudulent funds had been funnelled through UK Overseas Territories so their absence from the list is a glaring omission.

The UK isn’t the only one to see its perception ratings slide. The US’s drop of four points is also striking. The constant conflicts of interest and nepotism stories coming out about the Trump regime is taking its toll.

Whether Trump, whose promise to drain the swamp during his election campaign looks increasingly hollow, is likely to care that much is another matter.

But what is clear is that neither the UK nor the US look likely to be heading north in the corruption Index any time soon.

Where the UK sits in the Corruption Index should matter to all of us because ultimately it’s about what kind of society we want to live in.

Is it one where both central and local government are run fairly and in the public interest? Or one where government decisions and elections are swayed by private interests, and those with money?

Ultimately, its our democracy that’s at stake.

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