THE Independent Group for Change, the failed “centrist” party founded by Chuka Umunna et al, hired Boris Johnson’s former campaign team to help them choose candidates for the 2019 European election campaign. 

This was the Independent Group for Change’s first electoral test: the new party failed that test, getting just 3.3 per cent of the vote. 

Hiring Johnson’s staff and spending £886,681 on the campaign could not sell the new party to voters.

This April the Electoral Commission revealed party spending in the 2019 European elections. 

The figures show the Independent Group for Change paid InHouse Communications £57,552 for, according to the receipt, “vetting services for 109 candidates ahead of the European elections.” 

Umunna, Mike Gapes and other Labour MPs founded the Independent Group as a breakaway party in protest at Labour moving to the left. 

They were joined by a few anti-Brexit Tories, led by Anna Soubry. 

Critics said it was a movement of centrist MPs with no grassroots — an invention of the “Westminster bubble,” a reaction of MPs against ordinary party members. 

The Independent Group had very strong media support, so lots of wannabes and eccentrics volunteered to stand as potential MEPs in the European elections. 

But the lack of any organised membership in the country meant the Independent Group struggled to select candidates from the volunteers.

So they paid InHouse Communications to vet the would-be candidates. 

InHouse was founded by Jo Tanner and Katie Perrior, who ran Johnson’s 2008 mayoral campaign. 

Being Johnson’s former PR team is central to InHouse business: its publicity is heavily based on its “Boris” connection, with quotes from Johnson like “They are the Fortnum and Mason of communications. They deliver, and they deliver quality. Without them, I simply would not have been made mayor.”

InHouse has used its “Boris” experience to win corporate clients, like Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, Lloyds Bank and BT Openreach — you can see InHouse running a “lounge” to schmooze politicians for their business backers at most party conferences.

Turning to InHouse showed pretty much how the Independent Group for Change operated: it had a lot of cash, but no real members, so it turned to Tory campaigners more used to working as corporate lobbyists for help.

Did the paid-for vetting help? Apparently not. Two of its Euro election candidates had to resign within days of being selected. 

One Change UK candidate for London, a former Tory, had to resign from the supposedly anti-Brexit party within days, when it was revealed he had written on Twitter: “When I hear that 70 per cent of pickpockets caught on the London Underground are Romanian it kind makes me want Brexit.”

Shortly after, the party’s top candidate for Scotland had to resign when it was revealed he had tweeted many offensive comments including: “Black women scare me. I put this down to be chased through Amsterdam by a crazy black wh***.”

Change UK was already suffering because one of its leading MPs, Angela Smith, had described black people as having a “funny tinge.” 

Hiring Johnson’s former team did not — perhaps unsurprisingly — help them screen out other bigots.

The Electoral Commission figures also reveal that the Independent Group spent £886,000 overall on the 2019 Euro election. 

That’s about a third of what the Brexit Party (£2.6 million) and the Lib Dems (£2.5m) spent, and around half of what Labour (£1.6m) spent. 

So that was a lot of money to win a 3 per cent vote, compared with 14 per cent vote for Labour, 20 per cent for the Lib Dems and 31 per cent for the Brexit Party.  

The Independent Group for Change stood on the theory that there were a huge number of voters who thirsted for a “sensible” technocratic centrism, were driven by anti-Brexit feeling and wanted to break with the main parties. 

It bet £886,000 on it, and lost.

The Independent Group’s biggest expenditure was £229,435 with The & Partners London Ltd, for advertising, media, campaign broadcasts and market research. 

It is an ad agency trading under the slightly different name “The & Partnership” (pronounced “The And Partnership”). 

It is owned and run by Johnny Hornby, a friend of Peter Mandelson who worked on political advertising for Labour in the Blair years. 

Hornby’s company was also a major donor to the Independent Group for Change and designed their much maligned “big black stripes” logo. 

The firm claims it creates “big, bold and bionic work that blends world-class creativity with smart data, progressive technology and artificial intelligence.” 

But its bionic skills didn’t stop the Independent Group from crashing to the floor.

Death benefit and NHS fragmentation

THE government’s announcement of a £60,000 coronavirus “death in service” benefit looked like “blood money” to many people, but it was a positive — if limited — move. 

However, it shows how fragmented and privatised the NHS has become.

Permanent NHS staff who are signed up to the NHS pension will already get a “death-in-service” benefit. 

But the government came under pressure because retired and former doctors and nurses they were asking to volunteer to help in the coronavirus crisis were not covered — because they were not permanent NHS staff paying into the pension schemes. 

Those staff, rightly, demanded some coverage. Hence the broader death-in-service benefit. 

However, the fact that the benefit is broadly needed shows how few NHS staff are in fact working for the NHS, thanks to fragmentation and privatisation.  

Many support staff — cleaners, catering staff — are on the front line and exposed to coronavirus but work for private contractors. 

There are also nursing and other medical staff employed by agencies. And many doctors and nurses who are migrants from abroad on shorter contracts are also not covered by the NHS pension scheme. 

The death in service benefit for front-line NHS workers reveals that much of the NHS front line are not properly embraced by the NHS. 

Now the benefit has been agreed, it very much needs to be extended. 

We can argue about the amount, but the coverage is a very big issue: many groups are not currently covered by the benefit. 

Admin staff are exposed to coronavirus, sometimes by virtue of simply working in hospitals, sometimes because they have been redeployed to front-line services. 

Pharmacists support the NHS, and are also more exposed to coronavirus. And the huge, privatised social care system is absolutely at the front line of the coronavirus battle, and all its staff need to be covered by the death-in-service benefit.