Stats in political campaigns to be independently checked & withdrawn if false

Rejected 11 signatures

What the petition asks

Politicians can use figures which are misleading or false without consequence. e.g. there was no requirement for Leave campaigners to repaint their battle bus, the Remain campaign's £4300 worse off was based on GDP not income. Figures without context misleads and undermines faith in politics.

In the recent EU referendum the Leave campaign bus said we pay £350m a week to the EU let's pay it to the NHS instead. This had been shown to be false by the Office of National Statistics but there was no legislative power to force them to remove it. Numbers are often given to make political points without the necessary caveats and context which make them meaningful and useful. This is bad for democracy. A law which forced campaign information to be accurate or be withdrawn would help.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Create an independent authority to fact-check political campaign materials.

Timeline

28 Jun 2016	Petition opened for signatures
14 Jul 2016	Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 11

Status Rejected

Rejected 14 Jul 2016

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