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Democracy requires us, the electorate, to engage with the truth of statements made by campaigning politicians and vote accordingly. And to decide on the political sanction if they turn out to be false. It really isn't the role of the crimimal law to regulate political speech.
Where do cases like this lead? To the State deciding when to bring prosecutions against politicians for bad campaigning? Is that really what we want?
Is this ⬆️⬆️⬆️ what the kids call ratioed?
If you're interested in the subject, this is well worth a read. It explains that in 2016 19 US states had passed statutes prohibiting false campaign speech in some form. 
However, as it goes on to explain, there are very real doubts about the constitutionality of those statutes.
I think it's very unlikely that our constitution - such as it is - would prioritise free speech as much as does the US constitution. And there's certainly a case for looking at whether and how we regulate dishonesty in our politicians.
Should we have a real time official fact checking agency coupled with a legal obligation on a candidate to, for example, withdraw a false statement and apologise?
But this question will have to wait some future political idyll where our political class sees truth telling as a moral responsibility, a necessary incident of its role as guardian of our democracy. I wish I was optimistic about its arrival.
Thanks to @Claire_Bradley0 for the link.
