Democracy activists claim it should be illegal for MPS to lie, both in Parliament and in public.
Compassion in Politics group have drafted a new bill that would male dishonest politicians being punished by jail sentences, whereas speaking fibs would become a criminal offence for them.
In the most recent election campaign, the Conservative party caused fury when they changed their Twitter handle to “FactcheckuK.” Despite public outcry, they then began to create a fake labour manifesto to make a joke out of their rival party’s pledges.
The Liberal Democrats have also been chastised for creating election leaflets disguised to look like legitimate newspapers. Democracy campaigners responded by appealing for the ‘unprecedented level of lies’ these parties produce being stopped.
Jennifer Nadel, Co-Director of Compassion in Politics, said: ‘This has been the most divisive, deceitful, and disrespectful election campaign in living memory.
‘The tone many political leaders have set is entirely at odds with the caring, compassionate, and respectful Britain that most of us believe in.
‘We cannot undo what has happened in the last six weeks but we can learn from it and make changes to the law and to our politics that will prevent it from ever happening again.’
Parliament members who speak in Commons and accuse one another of lying are often asked to take back their accusations by the speaker. This is because the word liar is condemned as ‘unparliamentary.’
The Compassion in Politics bill has been introduced after 20 leading democracy organisations created an open letter to the new government, pleading for electoral reform. The groups stated this was the sole solution to addressing the UK’s ‘democracy crisis’ – but that it had been ‘dangerously absent’ from main debated taking place in Commons.
