Will Parliament have the guts to debate this petition to criminalise lying by MPs?
Duper’s delight: This is the smile Boris Johnson wears when he is lying.
One month after Dawn Butler was ejected from Parliament for pointing out – rightly – that prime minister Boris Johnson has lied to MPs “time and time again”, this happens:
A petition calling for dishonesty within the Houses of Parliament to be made a criminal offence has reached the 100,000 signature threshold required for a debate in the House of Commons.
But will the Tory government – whose prime minister is the most prominent liar on the Green Benches – have the guts to host it?
The petition states: “The Government should introduce legislation to make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence. This would mean that all MPs, including Ministers, would face a serious penalty for knowingly making false statements in the House of Commons, as is the case in a court of law.
“We believe false statements have been made in the House and, although regarded as a “serious offence” in principle, options to challenge this are extremely limited as accusing a member of lying is forbidden in the House.
“Truth in the House of Commons is every bit as important as truth in a court of law and breaches should be treated in a similar way to perjury and carry similar penalties.”
The government has already provided a response, which is mandatory after any petition passes 10,000 signatures: “The Government does not intend to introduce legislation of this nature. MPs must abide by the Code of Conduct and conduct in the Chamber is a matter for the Speaker.
“It is an important principle of the UK Parliament that Members of Parliament are accountable to those who elect them. It is absolutely right that all MPs are fully accountable to their constituents for what they say and do and this is ultimately reflected at the ballot box.”
But MPs are elected only by voters in their constituency – and then go on to disgrace the entire country. We need a mechanism by which anybody – not just local electors – can hold MPs to account and the criminal law should be it. And how, exactly, do constituents hold their representatives accountable?
“Freedom of speech in Parliament is an essential part of our democracy. It is a right that enables Parliament to function freely and fully, ensuring that MPs are able to speak their minds in debates, and to represent their constituents’ views without fear or favour.
“Parliamentary privilege, which includes freedom of speech and the right of both Houses of Parliament to regulate their own affairs, grants certain legal immunities to Members of both Houses to allow them to perform their duties without outside interference.”
Nobody is denying MPs these rights, of course. But freedom of speech is not freedom to lie. And legal immunities do not stretch to immunity from telling the truth.
The simple fact is that, time and time again (as Ms Butler rightly put it), MPs including the prime minister have deliberately and knowingly lied to Parliament and the nation – and they have been allowed to get away with it by a weak regulatory system and a weaker Commons Speaker.
We, the people, require a means by which we may directly hold our representatives to account.
If the petition calling for legislation to install such a means is refused, then Parliament will be admitting that it is corrupt, and that its members should be denied permission to make laws governing the rest of us; they will be demonstrating that they rule for themselves, not the nation.
This Writer would urge you to write to your own MP, demanding they support the demands of the petition and seek the introduction of strong legislation during the next Parliamentary session, to hold all Parliamentarians to account for their lies.
Let’s see how they all try to squirm out of it.
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I have already heard back from the petitions management: it will not be debated because all of the safeguards are in place to prevent lying (hollow laughter) and I had a letter from my MP, James Gray, saying the same BS.
I agree with the petition, but, if it was to become a criminal offence then we would not have any MPs for lying is part of the job description.
Actually, urging signers to write to their MPs is a stonking good idea!.
Will they debate it? is the burning question, isn’t it? A few of the blogs and news sources reporting this are stating that they ‘must’ debate it once it reaches 100,000 (currently just over 127,000). But, as you know, that’s not strictly true. The commitment is that it will be “considered” for debate. However, there does seem to be an expectation that it will be… which adds a little to the pressure.
We also have to bear in mind that this won’t be some big debate with lots of MPs. The Petitions Committee comprises up to 11 backbench MPs. The Petitions Committee can discuss the issues but it has no authority to enact legislation or compel government to comply with the demands of a petition. So, in answer to your question: yes, they could ‘have the guts’ to debate it because it wouldn’t really take guts as such. Ultimately, nobody’s obliged to take any action whatever the Committee decide.
It was I who raised this petition back in April (so it expires on October 14th), knowing full well it would never become law. It only really gained enough signatures to pass the 100k mark when Peter Stefanovic endorsed it. Activity on the petition had almost stalled at around 40,000 and probably would not have made the 100k mark by October so credit for getting this over the line must go to him.
But, coming back to my objective for raising it, it was to put Parliament in the difficult position of discussing (on camera) what everyone knows and is well documented with plenty of evidence, that the PM can lie with impunity. It’s more blatant and apparent with Boris Johnson, of course, but it has always been the case. That’s why Blair’s lies about “weapons of mass destruction” and “45-minute strike capabilities” etc. went unaddressed. The authority to take action against a member who misleads Parliament rests exclusively with the PM.
But, although all this is in the public domain, it’s not the sort of thing the public generally scrutinise and Westminster would rather keep it that way. It all looks above board with checks in place. Except, of course, that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is just a job title. It carries no authority to impose penalties or enforce action without the PM’s approval. As the government response points out, conduct in the Chamber, including adherence to the principles of Public Life is a matter for the Speaker. The problem here is that the Speaker also has no authority to impose penalties (with the exception of ejecting a member for use of “unparliamentary language”). It’s a meaningless merry-go-round that serves only to create the illusion that there are measures in place to ensure integrity and honesty in Office. There are no such measures. The best I could hope for is to bring this to public attention. I don’t know if this will be debated. The petition has exceeded my expectations with Peter Stefanovic’s help and, if it is debated, it will have fulfilled the objective I originally hoped for. It has also received far more publicity than I could have hoped for (again, thanks to Mr. Stefanovic). We have Peter’s video (31million views), we have Dawn Butler’s ejection from the Commons for refusing to back down over calling Johnson a liar, we have Johnson’s own endless catalogue of lies and, hopefully, by the time this petition expires in October, it may even get picked up by the mainstream press.
If you want to know what motivated this petition, it was Johnson’s assertion that the public “don’t care” about lying in Parliament. We beg to differ. This won’t result in a law against lying in Parliament but maybe it can add a little to the impetus against the level of lies and corruption in this government. Johnson’s position is no longer tenable. At some point, he will have to go and, although his replacement is likely to be just as self-serving, we will be watching closely and Johnson’s replacement will be more cautious. A replacement with true integrity is perhaps expecting too much. In the absence of that, I’m prepared to settle for someone too afraid to take the liberties that Johnson takes.