The Lib Dems, data, legal threats and fake documents

There’s an extraordinary story on openDemocracy involving the LibDems, the £100,000 sale of data, legal threats, false claims and the cynical attempts of a British political party, the supposed champions of civil liberties and free speech – hiring expensive lawyers to chase down small, non-profit media outlets exposing the truth.

Here are just a few paragraphs from a story by Mary Fitzgerald, Editor-in-Chief of openDemocracy that included copies of emails, accusations, claims and counterclaims about the LibDems.

 

---

 

We haven’t lost our sense of proportion. Boris Johnson and his government have an absolutely shocking record on spreading misinformation, smears and lies. openDemocracy has covered this issue extensively, and it’s the driving subject of an op-ed we’ve just published in The New York Times. We’ve often been accused of being shrill Remainers for doing so.

Corruption, suppressing evidence of foreign interference, breaking electoral law – all allegations involving members of the current government – are obviously a bigger deal than an amateur forgery from the press office of a party that has no chance of winning the next election.

 

But given how prolific Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats have been in calling out the scourge of fake news during this election campaign, it’s worth noting how busy they’ve been creating it themselves.

 

That’s what’s so cynical about hiring expensive lawyers to chase down small, non-profit media outlets like ours. We believe our original story about the data sale raised important questions, and we stand by it. Meanwhile they’ve given no apology, let alone offered to cover costs, for the time and money they’ve wasted making false accusations against us.

We’ve come to expect this behaviour from corrupt oligarchs and bullying, vain businessmen. Perhaps I was naive, but I did not expect it from Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats.

 

Read the full story at openDemocracy

 

---