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.
The issue I see is how the parlimentry partitions website is set up.
I think intentionally. But will take of the tinfoil.
The partition only allows for a very very short statement.
Even with this post. Many reply think I am trying to address statistics and claims rather then the clear and obvious lie that the treasury supported Sunaks data.
The bus court case may have given sunak president to openly lie in a campaign.
But even if this law existed. The bus was not provable. Anyone logical knew he would win.
The bus simply said we pay the EU 350m lets do this,
So it lacked information rather then stated provable false facts.
Sunak stated provable false facts. IE civil servente back up this data.
Given labour had received evidence that was false. Before the debate. And the civil service has a mandate to be non political. Is is provable that the service would also have sent the tories the same letter.
So again very provable that the campaign knowingly let sunak lie. Id say tomintentionally limit the power of fact checkers with what they rightly see as a less questionable source.
This partition needs to be worded in a concise way. That means no one can question exactly what we want.
One very short paragraph is all we get.
Plus a social media complain is we can get another folks interested and informed on the goals.
The term is “petition”.
The government petition website is generally terrible, and it does seem deliberate. You can’t create an account to sign petitions, so every petition you sign makes you enter all your details again, then open the confirmation e-mail they sent to confirm your e-mail.