The campaign to outlaw lying in politics

“Always ask yourself: Why is this lying bastard lying to me?” Perhaps these blunt words of advice for journalists interviewing politicians, attributed to the late foreign correspondent Louis Heren, have endured because they are seen as self-evidently true. That politicians lie is viewed as established fact. 

Public confidence in lawmakers plunged to a record low last year in the wake of Partygate and other scandals: only 9% of British adults polled by Ipsos said that they trust politicians to tell the truth. Without trust, says Jennifer Nadel of the thinktank Compassion in Politics, faith in democracy is undermined. “If we can’t trust what politicians are saying, how can we decide who to vote for? We need to be able to rely on our politicians to tell the truth,” she explains. 

Compassion in Politics has long been campaigning to introduce criminal penalties for political lying, with a petition launched in 2019 attracting more than 200,000 signatures. In a surprise move two days before the UK’s general election, the Welsh government committed to passing legislation that would make lying illegal for Senedd members and candidates, having previously opposed the measure. Under the plans, those found guilty of deliberate deception by an independent judicial process would be disqualified from office. 

“We’re excited and optimistic,” Nadel says. “It’s unprecedented that the government has agreed to take this measure forward.” Although some countries have limited penalties for politicians who lie during election campaigning or when giving evidence to committees, Wales is the first in the world to propose legislation that would apply more broadly to lawmakers and candidates. 

Compassion in Politics’ next challenge is to persuade Westminster to follow suit by banning MPs and parliamentary candidates from lying.  

The campaign sprung from concern at the rapid normalisation of lies in politics. “We are slipping at an alarming speed into a post-truth era,” says Nadel. “We only have to look at what is happening in the United States.”

Fact-checkers at the Washington Post found that Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidency, averaging about 21 a day. “America is a warning of what can happen if this problem is allowed to go unchecked,” Nadel believes. “[Our proposals] are designed to stop [the UK] from getting to that stage.” 

Polling shows wide public approval for the measure, with 72% backing criminal penalties for politicians found guilty of deliberate lying in an Opinium survey conducted for Compassion in Politics in May. Though it is not yet clear whether Wales would make lying a criminal offence, Nadel says: “If the same goal of disqualifying politicians who deliberately misrepresent the facts can be achieved through using the civil law, then we’re happy.” 

A private member’s bill to ban lying in Westminster, introduced by Plaid Cymru MP Liz Saville Roberts in 2022, had cross-party support. “We will be looking to build [on that] and win the support of the Labour government to introduce the measure,” Nadel says. 

A key obstacle is concern that it could impinge on MPs’ free speech. However, Nadel argues that, in a climate where “the vast majority of politicians do tell the truth but a tiny few bad actors pollute the water for everyone,” the law change would in fact protect free speech. It would act as a deterrent to the bad actors, she says, while giving the public assurance that the honest majority – tainted by association – is truthful. “If we can’t rely on speech to be honest, then there is no point in having free speech. Just as we defend free speech from hate crimes, and other forms of incitement, we need to protect it from dishonesty.” 

We’re excited and optimistic. It’s unprecedented that the government has agreed to take this measure forward

In an address to the Senedd, Plaid Cymru member Adam Price cited the philosopher Hannah Arendt: “[She said] that when political lying becomes normalised, it’s not that the people actually believe the lies the particular politicians tell … It’s that they stop believing in truth in general.” Price has been campaigning for politicians to face penalties for deliberate deception since the Iraq war, when he called for the impeachment of Tony Blair.

“You couldn’t function as a society if you constantly distrusted others,” says Andrew Chadwick, a professor of political communication at Loughborough University. “If you walk out of your front door, and you don’t trust that there’s a pavement to walk on, you’ll never get anything done. When intentions to deceive become normalised, people start to question the trustworthiness of all entities … You can’t believe anything you hear.” 

There is a danger, he says, when it comes to supporters of populist demagogues, “that if you try to police the truth, it just provokes a reaction among those communities that entrenches their views.” However, while much will still depend on the detail of the legislation, he believes the Welsh government’s commitment to ban lying is a “brave move.” 

“I think it’s important to signal a different set of norms, and try to arrest a slide towards the acceptability of attempts to deceive in public life.” 

For Compassion in Politics, another challenge is persuading doubters that banning lying in politics is even possible. “There’s this belief that it’s too complex to stop,” says Nadel, who qualified as a barrister. “But the law prevents fraudulent misrepresentation in other walks of life. This is something that courts adjudicate on all the time. Why shouldn’t it apply to politicians?” 

With a new government in office and “proven liars” she would rather not name entering Westminster for the first time, the change is urgently needed, she says. “Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street and spoke about the need to rebuild trust. And we think this is a key ingredient in doing just that.”

Main image: Jeff Bergen/composite