With all the other political high-jinks in Westminster, the long-awaited judgement in the Thanet 2015 General Election expenses case has probably not caught the attention of those most likely to be affected by it – Candidates and their Agents.
In brief, this outcome challenges some of the most commonly held interpretations of the electoral law. Moreover, it requires urgent parliamentary attention BEFORE any new poll.
Liberal Democrat activists may like to be reminded that even the Conservatives now accept that the current legal position cannot be allowed to continue. In the last few days of the June 2017 General Election (when the extent of charges was still in doubt) the Conservative Party issued the following statement:
“There is broad consensus that election law is fragmented, confused and unclear, with two different sets of legislation and poor guidance from the Electoral Commission. Conservatives are committed to strengthening electoral law.”
That is unfair on the Commission: it can only work within the law introduced by governments and passed by Parliament. Also, as this analysis shows in this respect, the law is indeed an ass.
We have been arguing with Cabinet Office Ministers that they cannot simply ignore these defects. Since 1883 it has been an offence to spend money to support an election candidate’s pursuit of office without that expenditure being recorded and limited by law. The way in which national parties have been able to bypass this restriction by investing huge sums in marginal target seats, while just avoiding direct reference (in most cases) to the actual name of the individual candidate, drives an early 19th Century coach and horses through this basic principle of our constitution.
We are pressing Ministers to act. Hitherto they have pleaded that the urgent legislative requirements of Brexit prevent them from introducing the necessary reforms. Hopefully, that excuse won’t survive much longer.
* Lord Tyler is the Liberal Democrat Lords Spokesperson for Political and Constitutional Reform.
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4 Comments
‘Poor guidance by the Electoral Commission’ It is an organisation that is underfunded and understaffed, a deliberate ploy to make it a’paper tiger’ .The Conservatives know it is to their benefit to pay lip service to the situation and delay any change.
When is the next general election?
The chutzpah of the Tory candidate amused me. Did he REALLY have no idea what was going on? Pull the other one! You know (good Faragian phrase), I wish that Nige had won – surely he deserved one victory for trying so many times (very trying some of you might say). Then we could have admired his ‘skills’ as he was put to the test in the House of Commons with no beer and fags in sight! Somehow, I don’t think that they would have treated him with the kind of kid gloves they appear to do in Brussels and Strasbourg.
By the way, I’m really pleased to see that Paul Tyler is still doing his stuff. I remember his brief visit to North Hykeham during one of our election campaigns in the mid 1990s and his supporting our Bypass Campaign of that time (still waiting, by the way; but possibly not for much longer). Like Dick Taverne and David Steel, to give just two examples, he represents for me the ‘old school’ of political toughness and conviction, laced with a thick veneer of natural politeness that is often lacking today.
I would suggest that one of the issues which needs looking at is penalties for offences. At present these are financial. That favours the wealthy parties – referred to as “the cost of doing business”. Horrible phrase – and an affront to democracy.
Also the issue of how the system is policed. It seemed to take ages for the police to get involved seriouly in the South Thanet case and they needed to ask for more time https://www.channel4.com/news/election-expenses-allegations-on-an-unprecedented-scale. Bending/breaking election expense rules needs to be treated with much greater urgency – does it need a specialised police unit?