Are you committing a crime if you sign a Parliamentary Petition in a false name?

Given the overwhelming evidence that Leave campaigners stretched funding rules beyond their legal limits, used covertly acquired Facebook data to target political advertising, and to put it bluntly cheated during the Referendum campaign, there is little surprise in the fact that Leave supporters are now urging their followers to use underhand methods to undermine the legitimacy of the Parliamentary Petition to revoke Article 50.

A handsome but somewhat callow-looking youth called Steven Edginton, the digital strategist for “Leave means Leave,” for example, claims – no doubt correctly though one never knows with people who consider their dishonesty virtuous – to have signed the petition three times in the names of Jean-Claude Junker, Donald Tusk and Michel Barnier.

Edgington: signed in various names

Julia Hartley-Brewer has encouraged others to do the same, using, like Mr Edgington multiple email addresses. The purpose, obviously, is to undermine the legitimacy of the petition, so that however many signatures it garners it can be written off as untrustworthy and irrelevant. Continue reading “Are you committing a crime if you sign a Parliamentary Petition in a false name?”