In January 2023, at the end of a lengthy blog post cataloguing the existential legal defeats that had made 2022 an annus horribilis for Jolyon Maugham KC and his (Not Very) Good Law Project, I suggested “the GLP is a busted flush, and it’s all downhill from now on”. But I also noted that, in the meantime, Jolyon will nevertheless continue to use other people’s money to pursue his many grievances against [what he calls] the “vast swathes of civil society comprised of Potemkin regulatory infrastructure whose true purpose is to tell a false tale of a functioning modern state”. And I think it is fair to say that the biggest of those many grievances is the one that Jolyon has against the Charity Commission.

However, as the satirist and editor of Punch magazine Alan Coren once said: “To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life”.

Jolyon’s current true purpose in life was evident by 7 May 2021, when – just two weeks after the Charity Commission granted charitable status to the Tufton Street-based LGB Alliance – he announced on Twitter (now X) that “we’ve found a very effective way to challenge the baffling decision of the Charity Commission to subsidise the activities of a transphobic hate group with your taxes.” The following month, the GLP launched a crowdfunder in support of an appeal against the Commission’s decision, by the controversial transgender youth charity Mermaids, in the First-Tier Tribunal. And in December 2021, the Tribunal agreed to hear arguments about both Mermaids’ ‘standing’ to bring the appeal and the merits of the Commission’s decision at a single hearing.

Meanwhile, in September 2021 the GLP had launched a crowdfunder in support of a proposed judicial review of the Government’s conduct of the selection and appointment of a new Chair of the Charity Commission. The crowdfunder quickly raked in £84,552 from 3,726 donors, but in February 2022 the judicial review claim was abandoned by the GLP, without having been heard in court, in what the GLP called a ‘drop hands’ deal with then Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries.

The First-Tier Tribunal eventually heard the appeal in Mermaids v Charity Commission & LGB Alliance over seven days in September and November 2022, by which time the associated GLP crowdfunder had raked in £83,692. But the following month the Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into Mermaids, after identifying “concerns about [the charity’s] governance and management”. And in July 2023 the First-Tier Tribunal dismissed the appeal. Ouch.

Meantime, in October 2022 the GLP-owned law firm Good Law Practice, acting for Clive Lewis MP, Caroline Lucas MP and Layla Moran MP, had written to the Charity Commission alleging “mismanagement or breaches of duty” by the trustees of the Tufton Street-based charity Global Warming Policy Forum. And the following month the GLP launched a crowdfunder in support of this and other actions aimed at “unmasking [the Tufton Street-based] organisations and challenging their abuse of charity status … we want to degrade the whole ugly Tufton Street infrastructure.”

Despite – or perhaps because of – Labour MP Clive Lewis being best known for making “offensive and unacceptable” remarks at a public event in Brighton and mocking suicide in the House of Commons, and pansexual Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran being best known for telling MPs she can see the gendered souls of trans-identifying people, the crowdfunder raked in more than £74,000 within three months. And, despite the crowdfunder not having been updated since February 2023, that sum has since risen to £76,150, including £80 donated this month.

Fast-forwarding to the present, on 4 March 2024 the GLP announced on their website and on social media that they are “preparing to take legal action” against the Charity Commission if the latter fails to “investigate whether GambleAware is breaking charity law by failing in [its] duties to provide unbiased information”. The announcement included a link to the Good Law Practice’s 20-page letter of complaint to the Charity Commission, and sought direct donations to the GLP, but as of 15 April there is no associated crowdfunder, and no news on the threatened legal action.

Just ten days later, on 14 March the GLP announced on their website and on social media that they have “teamed up with a cross-party group of [four] politicians” – Sian Berry (of the Green Party), Clive Lewis MP, Layla Moran MP and Alyn Smith MP (of the SNP) – and former Charity Commission board member Andrew Purkis, to make a formal complaint to the Charity Commission against the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) think tank. The 19-page complaint letter, sent by the Good Law Practice on 13 March, alleged that “the trustees of the IEA are failing to comply with the duties applicable to charities in relation to (a) the provision of education, and (b) political activity”, and called on the Charity Commission to open a statutory inquiry in respect of the IEA. However, on 25 March the Charity Commission dismissed the complaint. Ouch again.

While it remains entirely unclear how the £76,150 raked in by the GLP’s (still open) Tufton Street crowdfunder launched in November 2022 has been spent, and how much – if any – of that sum remains unspent, on 5 April the GLP launched a new crowdfunder, with an initial target of £40,000, in support of proposed legal action against the Charity Commission in relation to its handling of the October 2022 complaint against the Global Warming Policy Foundation by Clive Lewis MP, Caroline Lucas MP and Layla Moran MP – that is, one of the actions supposedly funded by the November 2022 Tufton Street crowdfunder.

Despite the brief (300-word) crowdfunder stating “we’re taking the first step in the legal process to challenge the [Charity Commission] over its failure  to act”, and despite Jolyon Maugham having recently asserted “we always publish our Pre-Action Protocol letter [before claim] when we crowdfund”, the new crowdfunder did not include a link to the implied ‘letter before claim’. So it was unclear whether the proposed legal challenge was to be a charity-law based appeal in the First-Tier Tribunal (as with Mermaids v Charity Commission & LGB Alliance), or a judicial review claim in the High Court. And there was no indication of the legal basis for the challenge, its prospects of success, or what might ultimately be achieved.

Accordingly, contrary to Rule 3 of the Code of Advertising Practice, the somewhat hyperbolic crowdfunder text did not provide the material information that donors needed to make an informed decision about whether to donate (and, if so, how much). It simply made the emotive and somewhat sweeping assertion that “it’s time to hold the Charity Commission to account for failing to do its duties”.

Only late in the evening of 5 April – by which time the crowdfunder had already received some £2,500 from more than 100 donors – did the GLP add a link to their ‘letter before claim’ to the Charity Commission. From this – but only from this – it is clear that the proposed legal challenge is a judicial review claim in the High Court, with the proposed claimants being the three MPs. Significantly, perhaps, in February 2021 the High Court ruled that Caroline Lucas MP and Layla Moran MP did not have standing to bring a judicial review claim alongside the GLP, in a case for which the GLP crowdfunded almost £205,000 (only to achieve very little). But potential donors would not know this from the crowdfunder or letter before claim.

Whatever, it seems the diminishing band of midwits happy to throw their money at the GLP – the average number of donors to GLP crowdfunders has fallen from 7,640 in late 2020, and 3,260 in mid-2021, to just 1,000 in the first three months of 2024 – do not share Jolyon’s puerile, zealous and largely unproductive grievance against the Charity Commission.

As can be seen from the following chart, while the GLP’s Ofcom/GB News crowdfunder and Victoria McCloud/Supreme Court crowdfunder – launched on 26 and 28 March respectively – each raked in almost £15,000 within 24 hours, since 5 April the Charity Commission/GWPF crowdfunder has struggled to raise much more than a quarter of that sum, and as of 15 April stands at just £3,780 from 173 donors.

Maybe Jolyon needs to follow the example of Caroline Lucas MP, who is standing down at the coming General Election to spend more time with her England flags, and find a new purpose in life.

Update, 23 April: As if proof were needed of the lack of nuance in Jolyon’s approach towards the Charity Commission, on 18 April he posted on X (formerly Twitter) a screenshot of DCMS minister Stuart Andrew’s answer of 15 April to a parliamentary question tabled by Labour’s Rupa Huq MP, about the GLP’s complaint to the Charity Commission against GambleAware (see above). In his answer to the PQ, the minister states: “The Charity Commission is an independent, non-ministerial government department. As such, it is not appropriate for the Government to comment on the Commission’s approach to handling complaints it receives in its regulatory capacity.” And, in his post on X, Jolyon states: “In fact, the Charity Commission is about as independent of Government as Stuart Andrew is.”

In their letter before claim to the Charity Commission, dated 4 April, the GLP requested a response “within 14 days, so by 18 April”, and it would be unusual for the Commission not to have complied with that request. However, on 21 April, the GLP promoted the Charity Commission/GPWF crowdfunder on X (formerly Twitter), without indicating whether a response has been received from the Commission, and therefore without explaining the contents of and/or linking to any response that has been received.

Along with the GLP’s initial failure to include a link to their letter before claim in the crowdfunder text (and/or to explain the nature of the proposed legal challenge in the text), this promotion of the crowdfunder on X appears to be a straightforward breach of Rule 3.3 of the Non-Broadcast Code of Advertising Practice (the CAP Code) produced by the Committee of Advertising Practice, the sibling organisation of the Advertising Standards Authority. Rule 3.3 provides that:

Marketing communications must not mislead the consumer by omitting material information. They must not mislead by hiding material information or presenting it in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner.

Material information is information that the consumer needs to make informed decisions in relation to a product.

Without knowing whether or not the Charity Commission responded to the GLP’s letter before claim within the deadline of 18 April, and therefore without knowing the nature of any such response, a person viewing the GLP’s 21 April post on X and clicking through to the Charity Commission/GWPF crowdfunder would not have the material information they need to make an informed decision about whether or not to donate to the crowdfunder (and, if so, how much). And, since 21 April, that post has been viewed more than 20,000 times.

For example, it is perfectly possible that, in light of the Charity Commission’s response, one or more of the three MPs and/or the GLP may decide that they should not continue with the proposed legal challenge. This is what appears to have happened in both the GLP’s General Election: Data case, with the proposed legal challenge seemingly abandoned by the GLP after receipt (on 1 February) of the Conservative Party’s robust response to the GLP’s letter before claim, and their Ofcom/GB News case, with the proposed legal challenge seemingly abandoned by the GLP after receipt (on 12 April) of Ofcom’s similarly dismissive response. And, as already noted, it seems unlikely that the Charity Commission had not responded by 21 April, given the deadline of 18 April.

Yesterday, on X, I asked the GLP and the three MPs to confirm whether or not they have received a response to their letter before claim from the Charity Commission, but they have not replied.

I have therefore made a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority against the GLP, Clive Lewis MP, Caroline Lucas MP and Layla Moran MP (ASA ref: A24-1242880).