Interesting Court case

[ALB]

In view of the fact that Lancaster branch have proposed to change one word in the Declaration of Principles (while leaving the rest of the class "war" metaphor unchanged so ruining its literary flow and creating an incongruous combination of styles), this recent Court case is of interest (Times Law Report, 6 April).

It concerns a request by the English Democrats (not the worst of the paries to the right of the Tories) for a judcial review of a decision of the Electoral Commission. They had registered as one of the 12 variations on their full name "English Democrats — England Worth Fighting For!". Following the assassination of the Labour MP Jill Cox and the likelihood of the English Democrats standing a candidate in the consequent by-election, the pusillanimous bureaucrats who run the Electoral Quango decided to revoke this name variation on these grounds:

Quote:

The commission took the view that the description "English Democrats — England Worth Fighting For!" was offensive in that context in that the description could reasonably be perceived as a call to, or condoning, violent means to further a particular political view.

The English Democrats challenged the decision asking for it to be judicially reviewed, i.e for the right of the Quango to make such a decision and for the way it was decided (rather than the decision itself) to be reviewed. The judge ruled that it had been properly taken and that the Electoral Quango was within its rights and had properly followed its procedures to conclude that the description

Quote:

would, for a sufficiently large number of voters reading the ballot paper, more likely to be associated with the primary meaning of the word "fighting" (the use of physical force to defeat an opponent) than its secondary meaning (campaigning for a cause), rendering the description offensve.

Clearly, the Quango took voters for fools. It is by no means obvious that the use of the word "fight" in a political contex is seen as a call for "physical violence". Quite the opposite. All parties use it and people take it in what the judge called its "secondary" (rather than its literal) meaning. Here's an example (taken at random) from a LibDem/Green leaflet for this year's local elections in London:

Quote:

We are fighting to protect public services … We are fighting a hard Brexit …

I don't suppose that even the pusillanimous bureaucrats running the Electoral Quango think that this means that voters perceive the Liberals and Greens taking up arms.

The lesson: the same applies to "wage war" in our Declaration of Principles". Only a fool or a mischief-maker will take it literally.

Second lesson: those who run the Electoral Quango are a bunch of tossers (in its secondary meaning).

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