The Charity Commission and the Conservative government have “sullied the UK’s reputation for exemplary regulation of civil society” by limiting charities’ right to campaign, a former Commission board member has said.
Andrew Purkis, a former chief executive of several charities, chair of ActionAid UK and a board member of the Commission until 2010, wrote in a blog published yesterday that after attending a meeting of ActionAid charities from around the world, he saw similarities between the attitudes of authorities in the UK and “tin pot governments and their cronies around the world” who attempted to limit charities’ ability to speak out against mistreatment of the poor by the government.
“Smear, threaten, restrain and repress: that’s the formula, and the UK authorities have started to model it since 2012,” Purkis wrote. “A relatively gentle version, compared with some, but unmistakeably from the same stable.”
He said he was particularly concerned by the attitude of William Shawcross, chair of the Commission, who complained about the “politicisation” of charities, and Gwythian Prins, a Commission board member, who said charities should “stick to their knitting” rather than campaigning.
He also identified comments by Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, who said that charities were politically motivated, and brought in legislation to limit their access to judicial review, and George Osborne, who suggested that charities were “anti-business”.
He said that the UK had joined “well over 100 countries where civil society space for peaceful protest and campaigning has been shrinking”.
He said ActionAid had seen examples of deliberate actions by governments such as Tanzania, India and Cambodia to prevent campaigning by charities against government decisions which marginalised or victimised the poor.
“Sadly, these brave champions of the rights of poor and marginalised people can no longer look to the UK as a beacon of how to regulate the charity sector with full respect for its contribution to democratic debate and collective decision-making,” he wrote.
“The tactics of some Conservative Ministers and some Charity Commission Board members have been all too familiar to civil society in Tanzania, Cambodia, Burundi, India and the rest.”
The Charity Commission said they do not wish to comment on the claims made by Purkis.
