Legislative reform to ensure truth in political advertising has long been a policy priority of The Greens, and is one subject of the agreement on Parliamentary Reform made between the country Independents and the Gillard government in September.
The usual response to previous attempts to get this sort of legislation debated by politicians has been to claim that it’s all too hard somehow.
So it’s very interesting to note that a UK Labour MP, and former Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas has been unseated by a judgement of the High Court. Woolas cannot stand for Parliament for three years, and there will be a by-election for his seat of Oldham East:
Elwyn Watkins claimed that Woolas knowingly misled voters in Oldham East in a desperate bid to stir up religious tensions in the last days of the election by claiming Watkins had “wooed” Islamic extremists. He also claimed Woolas lied about Watkins’s intention to live in the constituency.
The specially convened election court upheld those arguments after it saw confidential emails between Woolas’s team, which included the line: “If we don’t get the white folk angry he [Woolas]‘s gone.”
The ruling could change the way elections are fought. The former lord chancellor Lord Falconer said: “It is bound to have ramifications, if there’s no appeal, for how people conduct elections in the future. It is going to make all the political parties say, ‘look, we’ve got to be very, very careful about that in future’.” Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the committee on standards in public life, said: “There is a serious warning to all politicians.”
The case was brought under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act (1983) which makes it an offence for anyone to publish “any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” to prevent them being elected “unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.
The court ruled that Woolas’s claim, in mocked-up newspapers, that Watkins had “wooed” Islamic extremists and failed to condemn radical groups attacks, was deliberately and knowingly misleading. Woolas was also ordered to pay all costs.
Watkins said: “If you know you have lied about your opponent, then simply you have no part to play in democracy.”
Isn’t Phil Woolas the chap who was at the centre of the anti-BNP movement at the last election, or am I confusing him with Cruddas?
Wow. They not only passed legislation, it seems to be working. Astonishing.
Please sir, can we have some here?
@1 – Yes, that was Cruddas.
If they brought it in here almost the entire Coalition could never stay elected. NSW Labor would be in a bit of trouble too, I reckon.
It’s a bit sad Kim because Woolas was involved in an anti-BNP push in Oldham East, and there was a 5 year campaign there by Searchlight to get the BNP out – only for searchlight to suddenly find the local labour member saying “we have to get the white folk angry” by targetting islamic extremism.
It’s not a surprise – that area was the target of those “wildcat” strikes in 2009 that had Gordon Brown on his british jobs for british workers lark, everyone could see that the labour party had no principles when it comes to race issues, but to see it so blatantly stated is a bit disturbing.
Outrageous.
Democracy without lies is like Sonny without Cher.
I am not completely comfortable about high court judges upsetting the results of elections on the basis of known lies. My memory of the “hanging chad” decision is a bit too raw for that. Keep in mind that high court judges are political appointments.
This may have been a clear case although it is not clear how much the decision was influenced by the racial theme. It is also not clear how far the truth has to be distorted before the high court would act. (Or how important the lie? Or how clear that the alleged lie teller knew?) How would Howard’s behaviour in the child overboard election count?
Will be interesting to see if a whole lot of lie claims don’t suddenly appear.