Is ‘natural justice’ the new free pass for politicians in a tight spot?

Robert Jenrick has shown MPs in trouble will always fall back on pragmatic and practical arguments on questions great and small, writes Sean O'Grady

Boris Johnson is under intense pressure to sack the housing secretary (Getty)

When a political figure is in trouble with the law, a very handy new line of defence has now been introduced – “natural justice”. It is how Robert Jenrick, the secretary of state for housing, communities and local government has chosen to defend his intervention in a controversial property development by Tory donor Richard Desmond. Like Dominic Cummings’s plea that breaking the lockdown rules (or the spirit of them), it is used as a trump card, appealing to the court of public opinion and the much-vaunted “common sense” of the British people. The prime minister himself has endorsed the broad principle of doing what you think is right.

In effect, in his evidence to the select committee, Jenrick not only conceded that he deliberately helped Desmond by rushing through the housing development, to save Desmond a £45m tax bill (a local community infrastructure levy) and maintain the commercial viability of the £1bn scheme to convert an old printworks in London’s docklands.

Jenrick chose to invoke natural justice to support his case, though his actions were later struck down in a real-world court. The affair has proved embarrassing for the government, with much pressure being placed on Boris Johnson to sack Jenrick. While Jenrick survived, party members will also not have forgotten an earlier row Jenrick got into when he travelled during lockdown to his parents to deliver food and medicines.