Parliament will debate petition: Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence - 23rd October 2023
Parliament will debate petition: Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence - 23rd October 2023
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.
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This is a daft idea, it would basically stop any politican from saying anything or making any policy announcements. The people promoting this will be annoyed when MPs treat this deabate as a joke, but it's a completely unrealistic proposal.
Yes it's completely unrealistic to tell the truth.
The key word is "knowingly". Making a statement that is your best understanding of the situation but doesn't turn out to be true in the fullness of time is very different to lying.
But even in that situation they would be accused of lying, so it would have to be investigated. It would massively chill speech.
Given the alternative of having them make outright lies, i.e. regarding the benefits of Brexit? I'm OK with that
would basically stop any politician from saying anything
So you're saying that it is impossible for a politician to speak without lying ?
I don't care who you normally vote for, would you mind sitting the next election out ? Preferably all the ones after that too.
No, but I'm saying that if you make it illegal "lie" then they will say very little in case they are accused of lying.
I'm saying that if you make it illegal "lie" then they will say very little in case they are accused of lying.
Why the scare quotes around lie ? The word has a straight forward meaning which is already defined in House of Commons rules.i.e knowingly mislead.
It's not even "negligently mislead" where they say something they should have known was not true, but the much tougher test of proving they knew it wasn't true.
A ridiculously low bar, and yet you think even that is too high. Is this because you support politicians who have been shown regularly to knowingly mislead ?
The majority of parliament arrive carefully well prepared with facts. It's only a small number who deliberately lie, our former PM has been proved to be one of those.