At the Cop26 conference in Glasgow on November 10, 2021, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “I genuinely believe that the UK is not remotely a corrupt country.” This was in response to the furor surrounding the latest allegations of sleaze, following the resignation of former British cabinet minister Owen Paterson. Mr. Paterson had used his position and office to earn a total of £500,000 by lobbying for two corporations, which the Standards Committee described as “an egregious case of paid advocacy”. [1] Johnson’s comments addressed public outcry over Conservative MPs voting to prevent Mr. Paterson’s 30-day suspension for breaking parliamentary rules, as well as to change the procedures for how MPs are taken to task. 
This latest controversy struck at the very heart of the UK’s system of government and the ethical base of Western liberal democracies. Johnson argued that liberal democracy is the best system of government because of its moral grounding. [2] Abuses of authority, in cases such as that of Owen Paterson and the parliamentary vote in his favour, undermine the moral foundations of this system that the UK government claims to follow. Continue reading The Corrupt British Parliament and the Umayyad Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abdul ‘Aziz – A Comparison