United Kingdom @feddit.uk bugsmith @programming.dev 1 yr. ago

Parliament will debate petition: Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence - 23rd October 2023

petition.parliament.uk Petition: Make lying in the House of Commons a criminal offence

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.

34 comments

They'd all be in prison if that was law.
- Don't get my hopes up like that.
They're not gonna do that. Would be nice, but they've responded to previous petitions with "politicians gonna politician, it's up to voters to be educated and not vote for liars". Which, yeah, but also, people keep voting for liars.
- Voters don't get to choose who is on the ballot paper. Billionaires do.
  
  The people who are on the ballot paper are decided by the party via whatever mechanism they wish to use.
  
  If you want to change vote for a party that has its members decide who's on the ballot.
Oh I wonder how this will come out. Gosh I'm biting my nails.
Great idea. Won't happen though. The ministerial code already has something about this. The get out jail free card (literally) is that you have to prove intent of lying. Knowingly lied. That the key.

You saw how hard it was to get BoJo held to account. Imagine that shit show year round. Opposition will claim MP lied. MP will deny. "I didn't knowningly lie". "Yea you did". And so on and so forth.

The principle is sound. But I can't help thinking this is like a wrecking ammendment designed so that the sitting government (Tories in this case) say no because it will be deliberately unworkable and then for the opposition parties to go, "oh my days the Tories literally want to lie in parliament boo and hissssssss!!!".

Would love to see this done properly via independent parliament HR. The stress is on independent and with proper powers and fact checking.
- You miss a very pertinent point that they must correct the record at the earliest possible time. The ministerial code is also under the discretion of the PM of the day, so will only be put to a committee for discussion if he deems it necessary. This falls short when the PM himself is habitually breaking the code. Sunak as well as his ministers are again following suite by making up figures for the dispatch box, and failing to correct the record when it is pointed out.
  
  Yeah that's all good and everything. But when would they correct the record? Could they continue to delay by saying "well at the time I said what I said because I believed it to be the truth!".
  
  That's basically what BoJo said for two years.
can't believe it's not already
- Because, define lying.
  
  Even if you have proof the person was made aware of something, how can you prove they remembered it at the time?
  
  And what if they interpreted something incorrectly but believed they were telling the truth?
  
  And who gets to decide when someone is lying?
  
  The courts can already do this - perjury is already a criminal offence, and people have been charged and convicted of this. The court case when someone is accused of perjury will explore things like "And what if they interpreted something incorrectly but believed they were telling the truth". The courts will decide if the evidence shows if someone is lying, just as they do with perjury.
  
  The courts already know the difference between saying something misleading because you were simply wrong (that's not lying, that's just being wrong), and saying something misleading with the intent to mislead (lying).
  
  The legal system already does. It's called purgury.
Lol. This ought to be interesting
- No,it was a petition from 2021,it was debated, and the government response was that they have no intention of introducing legislation of this kind.
  
  It was not debated in 2021. It will be debated in October 2023.
  
  The govt response in 2021 was because it reached the lower threshold (10,000?) for a response. Now it's over the 100,000 required for a debate.
  
  My understanding is that it was responded to, but not debated.
- Well it's not a proposed bill and so they'll do some hand wringing and say some platitudes but nothing will come of it because the government has other priorities.
Yes, I expect much change in the house of commons as a result if this debate... /s

What the fuck is the point of these petitions anyways, never seen a single one amount to anything, and the moment they removed the ability to no confidence the PM via the petition it lost all potency.

If you're gonna have petitions make them proper, direct democracy style.
- I don't think your /s is necessary. Especially on a UK community where sarcasm is expected by default :)
- never seen a single one amount to anything
  
  I'm pretty sure they literally never have.
  
  It's a release valve; meaningless roleplay that allows people to think they're doing politics without changing anything, and prevent them from thinking about doing any more radical politics that might.
It already is... in a way.

It is against the rules of both houses to knowingly mislead the house, and Parliament is free to punish its members up to and including imprisoning them (until dissolution, anyway).
- Well that's the point of this, if they make it a crime then they shouldn't be able to get away with doing it.
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.
- 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.
They're professional liars... They won't be able to speak. I'm actually ok with that.
This is one of those things that seems so obvious. I wonder if many people already believe it's an offense.

Of course, it'll never happen. How many of those fuckers are likely to vote to be criminally penalised for their dishonesty? Not a lot, I'm thinking. Lying is how they make their money and consolidate their power. Wankers. It should be a criminal offense - the fact that they are allowed to lie without penalty undermines democracy. How are they supposed to make an informed and democratic vote if they're doing so based on mendacious info?

Also, I could be wrong about this but I have the idea in my head that the house is legally a court. And under certain circumstances, lying to a court is already criminal. So maybe this is already illegal? I'm probably wrong there, the people behind this petition surely know more than me.
But there would be nobody left?

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