The plot to criminalise populist politicians
Proposals being discussed in Cardiff and Westminster are authoritarian and unworkable
I’m sure we all remember the fuss during the EU referendum campaign over the suggestion emblazoned on the ‘Vote Leave’ battle bus that the £350m Britain sent to Brussels every week would be better spent on the NHS. How the shrill voices of the Remain campaign went into meltdown over that one. The lies! The deception! The sheer audacity of those ‘post-truth’ Brexiteers seeking to mislead the masses with their false promises!
In the judgement of the chattering classes, that bus had a significant influence on the result. But their judgement was seriously skewed. I was a foot soldier of the Leave campaign and can recall thinking at the time that if these people genuinely believed that millions were going to vote for Brexit because of something they had read on the side of a bus, they really did not understand their own country and had no sense of the anger that had been building inside it over the past couple of decades.
They still haven’t got over it. Even today, the metropolitan elitists see the Brexit vote, and the wicked ‘lies’ of the Leave campaign, as the catalyst for Britain’s turn from being a nation of tolerance and enlightenment to one infected with rampant bigotry and hate.
And that mindset shapes their entire political outlook – in particular their obsession with seeking ever tighter restrictions, whether through the law or social sanction, on what people may say and when they may say it.
They truly believe that large swathes of voters – especially those from the working classes – are unwitting dupes, people without agency or sufficient intelligence to arrive at their own opinions. These voters are, in their eyes, fodder for the populist right, prey to its falsehoods and ‘disinformation’.
After the referendum campaign, some aggrieved liberal voices made calls for leaders of the Leave campaign to be prosecuted. Others questioned the legitimacy of the democratic process itself, grumbling that if the masses misused the vote in this way then perhaps it would be wiser not to let them have it at all. Then Donald Trump went and got elected across the pond, and they really flipped.
A full decade later, they are still fixated on controlling the public narrative. That’s why they take against any person, outlet or platform that dares to challenge their own narrow worldview. They hate GB News and refuse to appear on it. They loathe Elon Musk’s ‘X’. They sit idle while people are hauled through the courts for saying or writing things which ought never to be regarded as crimes. And their Online Safety Act has, as some of us always feared it would, become something of an Orwellian censorship tool.
The latest authoritarian move comes in the form of a proposal by the Labour government in Wales to make it a criminal offence for a politician to ‘lie’ during an election campaign. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not want to see politicians making false or misleading statements in the hope of being elected. But how on Earth is such a measure remotely practical? How might it be policed? Who would determine what, in the cut and thrust of a febrile political campaign, constituted a ‘lie’?
Depressingly, it seems that the idea has caught on, for the Westminster parliament is also set to discuss a similar proposal tabled by Labour MP Luke Myer. Mr Myer wants to make it a crime for members of the Houses of Commons and Lords to deliberately mislead the public.
It seems to me that these proposals have been dreamed up for a single reason – to put the frighteners on any ‘populist’ campaigner with designs on standing for office. Were they to become law, the proposals would have the most chilling effect on public debate, with the likelihood that nonconformist election candidates would constantly be walking on eggshells, scared to say anything radical or unorthodox in case it lands them in a prison cell.
Throughout history politicians have embellished, exaggerated and ‘spun’. It may not be right, but in a free and democratic society it’s almost inevitable. By all means kick them out of office if they fail to honour their pledges. But if we’re going to start prosecuting election candidates every time they overstep the mark on the hustings, we will be driving a coach and horses through political democracy in this country.
The proposals being discussed in Cardiff and Westminster are unworkable and should be ditched. The liberal authoritarians supporting them really need to get used to the fact that Britain is changing, and they are no longer always destined to get their way as they did in the past. Their time would be better spent understanding why that change is happening rather than constantly seeking to silence those attempting to bring it about.
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An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.
It beggars belief that this proposal could seriously take hold when even the Speaker of ‘The Mother or Parliaments’ routinely lets Ministers lie, dissemble and distort the truth for a cheap dig at the opposition.
They should be careful what they wish for, as any half-decent AI system could call them out in realtime then we’d be left with constant interruptions during speeches, hustings, door-to-door campaigning, TV interviews and Parliament itself.
I can see many voters thinking this is a good idea as they are fed up with politicians breaking their electioneering promises. It will be essential, therefore, that sensible and analytical commentators like yourself endeavour to ensure that this Orwellian proposal is exhaustively discussed in the media.
Just another thought - does the current Labour front bench really want to be held to account in this way?