The public are hungry for change. They want to see politicians turn the page on months of dishonesty and deception. Our proposal – to properly regulate electoral ads – offers them a way to do that.
And recently we have taken some huge strides towards this goal.
We’ve made significant inroads with opposition parties. We’ve gained the official backing of the Greens for electoral ad regulation and almost all opposition MPs we speak with agree with the idea of it.
As a significant step towards regulation, and to put a stop to the electoral advertising disinformation arms race we’ve seen recently, this week we’ve started pushing for opposition parties to sign a code of conduct to prevent lies in ads ahead of the general election. In the first week Carla Denyer Co-leader of The Green Party and Gina Miller’s new party The True & Fair Party have agreed to sign up to it. We are now going to be approaching leaders of the other parties to sign up too.
Regulation isn’t a pipe dream. We held a cross-party event in 2021 with New Zealand’s Advertising Standards Authority CEO, Hilary Souter. In it she took MPs though how regulation to prevent lies in electoral ads has worked there for the last few decades with all the parties bought into the process.
We also established the first ever electoral ads review panel last year. A panel now being chaired by the esteemed Lord Puttnam that we set up to demonstrate how regulation could work in the UK. Now that we’ve completed the pilot run of it and shown that it can work we want to fully operationalise it at the upcoming general election.
The Advertising Standard’s Authority also updated its position a few years ago and said “we think political advertising should be regulated”.
Liz Saville Roberts MP included our ask in a private members bill last year too.
These are significant developments and now is the time to build on our success.
However, to do so, we need your support.
Reform Political Advertising is funded by people like you – people who believe that politicians and their parties should be honest.
We’re looking to raise what we think (given the difference regulation would make) is a modest £8000 to capitalise on the success we’ve achieved so far and keep the momentum going over the next year.
Your donations will:
- Mean we are fully prepared for a potential general election and can launch a nationwide campaign to convince candidates to back our campaign.
- Ensure we can continue to brief MPs – particularly MPs in opposition parties – and bring them over to our growing lobby of support. We will be asking them to sign up to the code of conduct I mentioned above ahead of the general election.
- Mean we can operationally run our election review panel at the general election to demonstrate that regulation can practically work in the UK.
Please donate what you can here. With your help, we will be able to finally ensure that electoral advertising is honest, transparent, and accountable.
If you’d like to find out more about the campaign and what your donation will be spent on please email alex.tait@reformpoliticaladvertising.org and I’d be happy to set up a virtual meeting to discuss it with you.
Alex Tait
Co-Founder, Reform Political Advertising