This petition was submitted during the 2015-2017 parliament
Rejected petition Criminalise false or misleading political campaigning.
In order for a democracy to function the electorate has to trust politicians to make honest claims and provide factual information in support of their case. Currently there is no legal consequence for individuals who make false claims and disseminate factually incorrect information.
More details
The EU referendum highlighted the ease with which the electorate can be mislead through the dissemination of demonstrably incorrect statistics and deliberately misleading claims (1). Voter mistrust in campaign statements damages our democracy.
An independent body akin to the ASA (2) should be setup to monitor, investigate and prosecute misleading campaigning.
1. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/27/eu-referendum-reality-check-leave-campaign-promises
2. https://www.asa.org.uk
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
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https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/139800
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