Government Rejects Voters’ Calls to Make Lying to Parliament a Crime, Over ‘Freedom of Speech’ Fears – Byline Times
by Disillusioned_Pleb01
Government Rejects Voters’ Calls to Make Lying to Parliament a Crime, Over ‘Freedom of Speech’ Fears – Byline Times
by Disillusioned_Pleb01
17 comments
People in this subreddit can barely agree what the truth is, never mind in parliament.
The freedom of speech bit I get.
There should absolutely be consequences tho.
Fair enough.
Then MPs should also get to state that they believe another MP is lying without the Speaker forcing them to leave.
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences…
But they’re cool with chucking out MPs whan they accuse other MPs of being liars (with proof)
You can say what you like, it just needs to be true. It’s not difficult
Had no doubt this would happen, just like they reject a public inquiry into brexit and the referendum because they know what happened and are terrified of it coming out in the open.
The silence would be deafening if they couldn’t lie….
A young, nervous new MP does their first speech. They claim the government has only invested £50,000 for the maintenance of their local trains. Shortly afterwards they realise they misspoke, it’s actually £500k
Did they commit a crime and should they be punished for this?
Another MP notices that everyone feels sorry for the inexperienced MP misspeaking. They stand up and claim that the government has directly caused 200,000 extra deaths from cancer through their policies. Their impassioned speech goes viral on social media and the government faces major criticism. The MP is later asked to substantiate their claim, at which point they say they mis-read a study and quietly correct the record. No report exists that directly supports their claim, although there is one that says extra investment in health 20 years ago could have prevented 200,000 cancer deaths.
Did they commit a crime and should they be punished for this?
A more experienced MP stands and claims that the government has made the UK economy the worst in Europe. All credible studies and reports do not agree with this, but the MP claims they were merely offering an opinion on the future prospects of the UK economy based on current performance.
Did they commit a crime and should they be punished for this?
The chancellor stands and claims the government has invested “an extra £5bn in the NHS, so the health service now has the highest investment its ever had”. The chancellor previously took £3bn out of the health service. The £5bn is actually only £2bn, and inflation means in real terms the health service has less funding.
Did they commit a crime and should they be punished for this?
A party leader claims that the English economy would flourish if the UK were dissolved. They campaign on this relentlessly, throwing around figures of economic growth, reduced immigration and reduced tax. “Everyone in England will pay £500 less in tax!” they shout in parliament.
The UK dissolves and none of the claims come to fruition. The figures the party leader offered *were* technically possible to achieve, but only if the stars aligned. They were also under no mandate – nor in any position of power – to actually deliver on these promises.
Did they commit a crime and should they be punished for this?
If MPs were to be arrested for lying, who is going to be the one to determine that they knowingly lied? What’s the checks on that person or group?
Once again the real argument for freedom of speech lies in the fact that if speech is restricted, someone needs to be put in charge of deciding what’s ok and what’s not. Saying “well we can find out if someone knew in advance that something wasn’t true” isn’t water-tight. There may not be any record of them saying they knew something wasn’t true, the information could have some element of being opinion-based and they or someone else could have changed their minds. The process requires an investigation into their past comments and files which can go astray as any investigation can, or be corrupt.
And before you say that police investigate these things in ordinary crimes, remember that they are ultimately held accountable to the government and therefore parliament. Adding another layer above parliament just moves the problem to there. We get to a classic “Who watches the watchmen” scenario. (In b4 Alan Moore reference).
Fair enough – but any attempt to obfuscate the truth, and no “honourable member” would “knowingly speak any mistruth”, would be a direct/indirect breach of the Nolan Principles and Ministerial Code.
Boris is like Trump a total lying bastard with absolutely no shame or integrity.
No.
Government is for governance. You cannot do that if you are recieving false information.
If you want to talk shit go to gb news
If you ban politicians from lying then every question will be answered with “I don’t know” or “I’ll have to look it up”, and nothing concrete would ever get said.
Government – shall we make it a crime to lie?… nahhh then we have nothing to say
So if someone lies in a court of law, it’s a crime (perjury). But lying in Parliament shouldn’t be a crime because “muh free speech”.
‘Evil cunts reject laws to stop their evil cuntiness’