Our letter to the new Prime Minister: Act on corruption and illicit finance to strengthen democratic resilience
22 July 2026
Dear Prime Minister,
We write to you as a coalition of the UK’s leading anti-corruption organisations, as you take office at a moment of opportunity, but also of real risk for British democracy.
Your commitment to make this moment a political “circuit breaker” and introduce a new political model creates an important opportunity to restore confidence in public life.
Years of corruption scandals, from outsized political donations to cronyism in PPE procurement, have left people feeling that politics is run for insiders, not for them.
That erosion of trust is not a side issue. It is core to democratic inclusion and resilience.
Where people believe the system is rigged against them, they become more vulnerable to those who would exploit that cynicism, the social contract weakens and it is harder to defend democratic institutions when they come under threat. Tackling corruption and cleaning up politics are therefore not technical or secondary tasks for your government. They are foundational to everything else you want to achieve.
We are encouraged that you take office with a chance to reset. We urge your government to make three early commitments that would demonstrate its determination to do so.
First, clean up politics. You have spoken of the need to end the instability of recent years and make politics work better. We agree. We encourage you to lay out a bold and concrete agenda for restoring trust in politics, including lobbying transparency reform, banning second jobs for MPs, and introducing a donations cap. The Representation of the People Bill, due to return to the Commons in September, provides a key opportunity to do the latter.
Second, demonstrate strong leadership on corruption to protect public money, national security and trust in government. It is vital that you reconfirm the UK's Anti-Corruption Champion and set out an ambitious timeline for implementing the UK Anti-Corruption Strategy. Decisive action on this important agenda would send a strong signal, at home and abroad, about the priority your government places on tackling corruption.
Third, maintain the UK’s international leadership against illicit finance, which fuels corruption, organised crime, and hostile states, and deepens global inequality. Confirm that the Illicit Finance Summit will proceed in December with senior political backing and the ambition needed to secure meaningful commitments. This would deliver the Labour manifesto commitment to work with allies and international financial centres to tackle corruption and money laundering, while demonstrating leadership at a time when corruption and kleptocracy are increasingly recognised as threats to global security, democratic stability, and the energy transition. The UK’s upcoming Presidency of the G20 in 2027 is a crucial moment to advance this agenda.
We would welcome an early meeting with you or your senior team to discuss how these commitments can form part of your government’s programme for political renewal.
Yours sincerely,
Adrian Lovett, UK Executive Director, The ONE Campaign
Andrew Pepper-Parsons, Director of Policy and Communications, Protect
Daniel Bruce, Chief Executive, Transparency International UK
Gabriel Šípoš, Senior Legal Manager, International Lawyers Project
Gavin Hayman, Executive Director, Open Contracting Partnership
Liz David-Barrett, Director, Centre for the Study of Corruption, University of Sussex
Louise Russell-Prywata, Co-Chair of the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition and Deputy Executive Director, Open Ownership
Oliver Windridge, Senior Adviser, The Sentry
Sue Hawley, Co-Chair of the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition and Executive Director, Spotlight on Corruption
Susannah Fitzgerald, Senior Officer, Natural Resource Governance Institute
Thom Townsend, Executive Director, Open Ownership