Honours on merit, not cash or cronyism

It’s right that honours are given for outstanding achievements or service to the country.

But there’s also a dark side to our honours system - the rewards given to political donors, cronies and chums.

Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak have all used honours to reward their allies. Their lists have highlighted the rottenness at the core of honours chosen by politicians.

Since 2019, honours have been awarded to more than 20 party donors. The majority of honours since 2019 have been awarded to men, and only a few honours have been awarded to people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Johnson, Truss and Sunak are not the first Prime Ministers to appoint their allies, but they should be the last.

As far back as 1925, Parliament was forced to act on the selling of honours, but the legislation passed then has proved to be hopelessly inadequate to deal with its modern day equivalent - party donors being fast-tracked for an honour.

This blatant cronyism damages the reputation of Parliament and corrodes the public’s trust in our politics.

A new appointments’ process

We believe that honours should be based on merit alone. No more gongs and peerages for disreputable cronies and donors.

That’s why we’re calling for all political honours to go through the same independent assessment process that normal honours go through.

The appointments' process should be conducted by the Cabinet Office with maximum transparency. The process should be regularly reviewed to ensure that it is fair.

We also think outgoing Prime Ministers shouldn’t be allowed to nominate more than 10 people for an honour. If a Prime Minister had less than a year in the job, they shouldn’t be able to nominate anyone.

We must fix this to restore trust to our political system.

If you agree, please sign the petition below.