TLDR at the end I just post how I propose to convince the new parliament.
If polling is anything near to close. Starmer will enter parlimemt on the 5th with a landslide majority.
Time for us to remember the court case PM Johnson won for the 350m lie on a bus. The high Court simply stated.
Parliment has made no law banning lies during a campaign.
Well we really do have an opportunity to convince Starmer to change that. With Sunak and Co clearly following the last elections lead. Lieing about the civil service backing up their cost estimates.
It is time parliment tried to build confidence in election claims. This would only be practical when it comes to provable falsehoods of fact. Such as the claims made about Starmers campaign. After they have been informed the civil service did not analyse the data they used.
Unfortunately forcing a party to follow its manifesto is not really doable. And if parliment made the law. The next parliment would cancel it.
How to convince Starmer et al
OK so most will remember back in the coalition. The new government claimed to want to be responsive. So they set up an official, way for the public to request parliment do things. Resulting in parliment responding with crappy excuses every single time 10k signatures. Or a dumb argument in committee at 100k.
Now consider a new majority land slide parliment. Walking into government on July the 5th. With a social media publicised request to make it illegal for election campaigns, to continue to publish claims known to be false.
Its a simple law. If your party has received evidence that your clai is false. You must stop using it or face legal punishment.
So assuming 10k votes. The new government would need to write a response claiming they think lieing is OK.
Pretty sure the electorate can eviserate them on social media after that. Changing their mind. The new tory opposition leader. (Or Lib Dem maybe?). Would sure as he'll leap on the new government for such a claim.
But honestly to get the response needed. 100k signatures and the parliment required to have a public committee debate on their right to lie in campaigns.
No new government with a huge majority is going to be willing to face that.
Help
If you have read this far. You will recognise, I am not great at grammar and my wording is not consise. So when it comes to writing the partition on the parliment website. Someone more skilled would be best. Or a discussion here as to the best wording etc.
Do please if this idea seem worth while. (Let's face it what have we to lose. A few mins a day signing a partition and posting to social media over the election. )
Then please join a discussion here. To try to push this idea forward over the next month.
Let us reflect on how parties might react to this and how a simple law might not achieve your aims.
Another wrinkle is deciding who is going to police this, who is the arbiter of truths and lies?
In almost every case I can think of, political parties already avoid lying.
With statistics they can find the right one to backup their point and ignore the other study which contradicts them. They offer opinions, points of view, oversimplificatios and predictions.
None of these are lies. Manipulation of the same family certainly. It was true that we sent £350 million per week to the EU, except it really wasn't and yet if you offered evidence that it was a lie it'd be easy to produce evidence that it wasn't. Truth is complex.
Add to this we have a mechanism built into democracy that is intended to punish parties who lie or otherwise behave this way, its the voters. For this to work we need an informed and aware population to vote in elections, your post suggests you don't see the voters as capable of this?
To achieve an informed electorate who understands complexity and nuance getting out of the simple mindset of right and wrong is needed, away from simple truths and lies.
In short.. "Examine a law not for the good it will do if correctly applied but for the harm it will cause if incorrectly applied"
Just to nit pick a bit, because of how the rebate worked we literally didn't transfer that 350m figure, as the discount was applied immediately, like, er, a meal deal? 😁
https://fullfact.org/europe/membership-fee-eu/
Detail counts!
They will respond by having 3rd parties announce their lies. But hesitate to repeat them as officials of the campaign.
The same people who examine any evidence. The courts. There is a reason I propose the simple statement. If clear evidence dose not proove a statement wrong. It is not covered.
IE here the civil service informed that they did not consider the data. So a court can easily confirm the data used by the civil service. And confirm the campaign had received information.
So the result of the law would.d be campaigns have to think about claims before repeating g them. Or face potential of legal, punishment.
Yep except that seems to be changing. Sunak was very open about claiming the treasury civil servents had approved his data. After the treasury had informed him it had not.
Personally I think the boris bus (That likely would not be included here) court case. Has drematicallly changed how desperate party politicians see lies. But of course I can't see into their minds, only propose a solution.
Agreed. And that is by definition not a lie. But when they use claims of professional bodies backing them up. Or in this case professionals civil servents who are required not to express political, bias. It is a very different level. Much much more important then statistics that every one subconsciously knows are not facts.
The treasury agrees with our figures is the lie. Not the figures. Given the status of the treasury it is also a freaking dangerous lie. And as the treasury had informed Labour of its falsehood. Their civil service non political involvmet requirements mean they will have informed the Conservatives as well. So the lie is provable. The evidence is their to be collected. Evidence not of a questionable claim. That is not a lie and not expected to be covered by my proposal. But evidence of the claiming is backed up by civil service independence.
Thank you for being the first to respond. We basically agree on the idea. But as I said wording is where I need help.
The fact is you read my post. And assumed I was trying to prevent campaign claims and data. I am not and honestly tried and failed to make that clear in my post.
Hence I need help.
Lies are a clear and definable thing. Even if politics distorts the idea of truth. What we saw yesterday was very much a new level of activity. One that needs shutting down before it becomes a common part of our elections.
My reason for mentioning the bus. Was not to include it. While it was scummy no one logical thought boris would be convicted.
But I feel the court openly stating that no As exists making election lies a crime. Rather then we can't proove this is a lie.
While accurate. Has changed the way desperate politicians see the act of sharing knowingly false facts.