The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #162855   Message #3913403
Posted By: Steve Shaw
27-Mar-18 - 05:15 AM
Thread Name: BS: Post Brexit life in the UK
Subject: RE: BS: Post Brexit life in the UK
In fact, the Electoral Commission has been obliged to revisit the issue following a juducial review, and, as far as I know, they have yet to report.

On the issue of the government's spending on the referendum campaign, you're opening a moral question, not one of rule-breaking. I'd argue against your point on the grounds that, in a democracy, the elected government of the day generally takes partisan stances in formulating policy and, in many cases, will legitimately spend money on publicising its policies. I can't see the brexit issue as being any different. The Cameron administration was always openly pro-EU/pro-remain and was, yes, spending taxpayer money in promoting that idea. No rules were broken, but an opposition party could conceivably have used that spending decision to criticise the government, either straight away or in a subsequent election campaign. Holding governments to account apropos of even their legal spending is part of our democracy. The difference is that no rules were broken. We don't quite yet live in the Wild West. If rules were broken in significant and deliberate ways, then the referendum was not valid. We're human beings and we can generally ignore minor and/or accidental breaches that can be shown not to have have had a significant impact on the outcome. We are not in that territory here, possibly.