When it comes to buying a product, you wouldn’t be satisfied if after buying it you found out it doesn’t live up to what it was advertised to be. So, why is it that when it comes to voting in a referendum, campaign parties are allowed to lie about their policies and not reveal this until after the results have been announced?
The year of 2016 was full of surprises, but one of the most shocking occurrences was the decision that the public of Great Britain made to leave the European Union. On June 24th, Great Britain held a referendum, presenting the question of whether or not the country should remain as a member of the European Union. After the surprise result was revealed the following day, many people took to the internet, furious about the results of the decision and within days a petition for a revote had accumulated over four million signatures. However, whilst this is an enormous number, far surpassing the 100,000 signatures required for a petition to be considered for a debate in parliament, it is extremely unlikely that there will actually be a second referendum.
There is an immense number of people requesting a second referendum not only because they didn’t get the result they want but because it has come to surface since the referendum that the main policies made by the leave party will not be kept, and this has caused many of the people who voted to remain to change their mind. In fact, polls have shown that there may now be a majority in favor of remaining in the EU. The main policies made were that the party would donate 350 million pounds to the NHS (National Health Service) per week and that there would be better control of migration from the EU and at the same time, there would be full access to the single market. It has now come out that the NHS will not be receiving 350 million pounds per week and that we will not be able to negotiate control of migration from the EU and at the same time have full access to the single market. Astonishingly, the leave campaign did not commit any kind of offense by advertising these false statements; despite the fact that had this happened in an election it would have been an electoral offense and there would have been consequences for the candidate.
Theresa May- the appointed prime minister after the resignation of David Cameron following the referendum- made it clear in her speech that Great Britain would be leaving the EU. She argues for the legitimacy of the referendum, but numerous other articles disagree with this, one even questions whether or not making false statements in referendum campaigns should be an electoral offense. In this post, Doherty lists arguments both for and against the notion; his main argument against revolving around freedom of speech. His point is valid, but why should this be the case for a referendum when it’s not for any other type of advertisement (even within the world of politics)?
On the list of electoral offenses in the UK, under the category of false statements, it says that it is in fact an illegal practice to publish false facts about a candidate. This should absolutely be the same case for parties in a referendum. Voting for a candidate is no different to voting for a campaign in a referendum; however, the list of electoral offenses does not reflect this.
Furthermore, in marketing and advertising, there’s a law against misleading consumers, this law even says that this includes false or deceptive messages. So why should politicians selling their parties policies to the voters be different from a company selling their products to consumers? 17,410,742 people voted to leave and then found out that they would not get what they voted for. If 17,410,742 people bought a product from a company and didn’t get what they paid for, then the company would have a serious issue- and this should be the case for the leave party too.
In Doherty’s article, he also uses an article by Adam Wagner to look at a specific argument to support the actions made by the leave campaign. Doherty draws upon Wagner’s statement that the campaign didn’t completely lie, just exaggerated the actions they would take. However, if we treat the campaign leaders as businesses, even this exaggeration would be problematic due to the fact that it is against the law for them to advertise with deceptive messages, and an exaggeration would come under the category of deception.
In conclusion, politician’s should not be allowed to get away with advertising false information to the public in referendums when the voters have to use this information to make decisions that will have huge consequences that effect the lives of everyone. These campaign laws should be treated just like marketing and advertising when it comes to businesses selling products to consumers., or like candidates in an election. If it is an electoral offense to publish false facts about a candidate there’s no reason not to extend this offense to cover campaign parties too.
Villains and Villainy 170 