Thread by @alanjrenwick

What do you do when a major political party starts undermining our core democratic institutions?

Quick thread on the problem and potential solutions. (1/12)

@ConUnit_UCL

The Conservatives are threatening a post-election 'day of reckoning for Channel 4'. They are fully within their rights to refer C4 to Ofcom over bias concerns. But for politicians to float interference with an independent broadcaster is outrageous. (2/12)

telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/…

Yesterday, the BBC complained to Facebook over a Tory ad that 'could damage perceptions of our impartiality'. There are also real concerns that the BBC and other parties may have been duped over whether Johnson will be interviewed by Andrew Neil. (3/12)

bbc.co.uk/news/election-…

Last week, we had other misleadingly edited videos, and the grossly inappropriate rebranding of the Tory press office's Twitter feed, masquerading as an independent fact-checker. (4/12)

https://twitter.com/FullFact/status/1196887778736390146

Clearly, other parties are up to mischief too. Labour's claim that 95% would pay no more tax under its plans is false. The Lib Dems are still using manipulative bar charts. An SNP leaflet has been ruled in court as 'defamatory' against Jo Swinson. (5/12)

bbc.co.uk/news/election-…

But it's the Conservatives who have repeatedly assaulted our independent sources of well researched, impartial information. Doing this is an attack on democracy.

So what can be done about it? (6/12)

Clearly, we need a new process for agreeing debates among parties and broadcasters at the start of the campaign, coordinated by Ofcom or an independent debates commission. (7/12)

Broadcasters must, meanwhile, be robust in standing up to abuses. The BBC must not let itself be pushed around. And, when one side is misbehaving more than the other, impartial observers must say so. A previous @ConUnit_UCL blogpost explored this. (8/12)

constitution-unit.com/2019/10/24/par…

The internet giants need to tighten their rules, we need a new regulatory framework for online political advertising, and, in extreme cases, the courts need to be willing to intervene as they did in Scotland this week (9/12)

But enforceable rules can't do all the work. We need norms as to what is and isn't acceptable. Journalists must call out politicians who violate those norms. We, as voters, need to protect our democracy by doing the same. (10/12)

As @MichelaPalese and I argued earlier this year, we also need to be creative in developing new ways of engaging the public in more deliberative forms of discussion around politics. Broadcasters have a key role in promoting that, and must do more. (10/12)

ucl.ac.uk/constitution-u…

Yet the fundamental problem is that we are now a highly unequal, polarized society. In that context, reasoned political discourse is hard to sustain, and populist swagger can all too easily win. All parts of our democratic community must do more to address that challenge (12/12)