,
5 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
You read this stuff and you wonder: has the approach taken by the Court of Appeal in the Wilson case - the person complaining of a breach of electoral law has to show that the result would (or would probably) have been different - created an open season on democracy?
The Court of Appeal used both formulations (bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/…). Both seem to me to place on someone seeking to secure the observance of electoral law an intolerably high burden: how does that person prove cheating changed the result? 
This means, in practice, electoral law only applies to some participants. Reputationally sensitive participants abide by it because they can't afford not to. Reputationally insensitive participants can ignore it with relative impunity.
The law *creates* a tilted playing field.
The law *creates* a tilted playing field.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not saying the story reported by Channel 4 yesterday amounts to law breaking by Farage or Banks. What I am saying is that they may have little reason to care whether it does or it does not.)
How is our democracy @!€%ed? Let me count the ways.
