You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
CILIP, the UK Library and Information Association, has submitted a formal complaint to the Conservative Party over its press office's decision to temporarily rebrand its Twitter account "factcheckUK" during the televised leaders' debate last night.
CILIP said the social media stunt lacked integrity and showed "a failure to provide moral leadership". The move to change the name of the Tory press office account @CCHQPress to "factcheckUK" while Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn went head-to-head on national television has attracted widespread criticism that it misled and deceived the public on the evening of 19th November.
Although Conservative Party chairman James Cleverly has said he was "absolutely comfortable" with what occurred, CILIP says the move contravened commitments made in the party's own Code of Conduct.
In a letter to Cleverly, Nick Poole, chief executive of CILIP, wrote: "Rarely has it been more important that all political parties respect the role of evidence and accountability in public life. Your party’s actions in misrepresenting itself as a legitimate fact checking service cross a line which ought never to be crossed – raising the spectre of state-sponsored misinformation and the deliberate undermining of truth and accountability which should have no place in British politics."
Poole emphasised the issue was not a party political matter for the organisation, rather its interest is borne out of its committment to supporting citizens' access to accurate information, which led CILIP to spearhead the #FactsMatter campaign in 2017 calling on those in public office "to make a clear commitment to evidence and accountability in our politics".
Quoting the party's own code of conduct back at Cleverly, Poole wrote: "Specifically, the communications team and party leadership have failed to 'act with honesty and probity and in a manner which upholds the reputation and values of the Conservative Party. Such duty is fundamental. Conduct which the public may reasonably perceive as undermining a representative’s honesty and probity is likely to diminish trust and confidence placed in them, and the Party, by the public."
In the letter, Poole proceded to take issue with the Twitter rebrand and argued that it flies in the face of guiding principles of the Tories, such as selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership.
"Your code of conduct references the Nolan Principles of Public Life," the letter reads. "We submit this complaint on the basis of the following:
"Selflessness – in taking the action you have, your Party has clearly failed to observe the requirement to “act solely in the public interest”. There is no legitimate interpretation of your actions which can be understood to serve the public interest, including your political campaigning in the 2019 General Election, which does not serve as grounds for ‘public interest’;
"Integrity – intentionally changing a social media handle, branding and communications to purport to be a legitimate fact-checking service cannot be interpreted as an act of integrity, in any sense, on the part of those that decided to do it;
"Objectivity – your action materially contravenes the mandate to 'take decisions impartially, fairly and on merit, using the best evidence and without discrimination or bias.' Mis-representing political messaging as ‘fact’ is clearly failing to use the best evidence and evidently discriminatory;
"Accountability – your quoted responses to concerns in the media today fail to address the legitimate concerns surrounding this action. To claim that retaining the underlying twitter ID while changing the handle of the account does not misrepresent the nature of the account is entirely insufficient as a justification for this action. We feel this is a failure of accountability on your part, which ought to be addressed through your Code of Conduct;
"Openness – to mis-represent the nature of a social media channel clearly contravenes the mandate to 'take decisions in an open and transparent manner';
"Honesty – to quote your Code of Conduct, 'Holders of public office should be truthful'. There is nothing ‘truthful’ in seeking to mislead the public or to mis-represent Party communications as a legitimate fact-checking service;
"Leadership – this action, and the intent underlying it, manifestly represent a failure to provide moral leadership that is incumbent on all holders of public office."
CILIP urged an investigation be initiated and not dismissed, acknowledging a loophole in the code of conduct that also allows an investigating officer to dismiss complaints that are "obviously trivial, and/or lacking in merit and/or cannot fairly be investigated or cannot be investigated".
"We urge you in the strongest terms not to disregard this complaint on any of these grounds. The concerns raised by your actions are not trivial, not lacking in merit and can absolutely and reasonably be investigated. In the event that this complaint is disregarded on these or any other grounds, we will escalate the matter to the Electoral Commission for consideration and may take further action," the letter reads.
"We hope that the investigation of this complaint will provide an opportunity for the Conservative Party to reflect on the fact that evidence and accountability matter in public life, and that the actions you have taken seriously undermine this principle."
Speaking about the complaint, Poole commented: "The actions taken by the Conservative Party are clearly at odds with their own code of conduct and with our commitment as librarians and information professionals to help people access and use trusted, reliable information.
"We believe that all political parties have a duty to the public to provide accurate information and not knowingly to misrepresent campaign rhetoric as facts. We hope that this complaint will serve as a reminder to all parties to stick to the facts, even in the heat of political campaigning."
The Bookseller has contacted the Conservative Party for comment.