The Yorkshire Party has announced its support for the Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising and its aim to modernise the outdated rules for political advertising.
The Yorkshire Party joins, amongst others, the Green Party, the Independent Group for Change and the UK’s advertising trade body ISBA, in supporting the campaign. The group has called for the other main parties to support the Coalition and its recommendations.
The Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising is a volunteer-run, politically-neutral project, which was founded in May 2018. Its recommendations are summarised in a four-point plan, which promotes transparency and accuracy in political campaigning:
- Legislate so that all paid-for political adverts can be viewed by the public
- Give an existing body the power to regulate political advertising content or create a new one to do so
- Require all objective factual claims used in political adverts to be substantiated
- Compulsory imprints or watermarks to show the origin of online adverts
Chris Whitwood, Leader of the Yorkshire Party, said:
“This is turning out to be the disinformation election. It has certainly provided all the evidence we need to demonstrate the urgency in updating the out of date the rules for political advertising. We fully support the Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising’s 4 point plan for reform.”
Alex Tait, co-founder of the Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising, added:
“We are delighted the Yorkshire Party are showing strong leadership on this issue and supporting the Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising’s campaign. It is amazing that despite all the media coverage and various inquiries since the last election and Brexit referendum there have been no changes of significance to the rules in this area. We now need the other parties to join the call for change including rules around misleading claims in ads.”