In January, I noted on this blog that – just like one of the RAF’s bombers in 1942 and one of the Natural History Museum’s dinosaur skeletons in 1975 – one of the (Not Very) Good Law Project’s much-hyped and repeatedly promised legal challenges, launched in April 2023, had gone missing.

A few weeks later, the GLP found that legal challenge – against Voter ID rules – down the back of their sofa and, at the last possible moment, a laughably weak judicial review claim was filed with the High Court.

It remains to be seen whether that court claim will be heard ahead of the approaching General Election – that being the repeatedly promised course of action for which the associated GLP crowdfunder has raked in almost £60,000 since April 2023. But now another crowdfunded GLP legal challenge has gone missing.

Maugham v Conservative Party

Launched on 22 January 2024 in support of proposed legal action against the Conservative Party for alleged breaches of data protection rules, the GLP’s General Election: Data crowdfunder raked in more than £25,000 within 48 hours, by revealing that a specialist law firm acting for Jolyon Maugham had sent a ‘letter before claim’ to the Conservative Party on 19 January, and by promising “a broad campaign to protect voters’ data rights” in the run-up to the approaching General Election:

Between now and the [General] Election we will be keeping an eye on how political parties [sic] are using your data – we have further actions already planned. We’ll be defending your data rights both through litigation and through reporting on bad practice. Anything you can give to support our work will help us shine a light on these shady campaigning schemes and put us all back in control of our democracy.

On 31 January, numpty Labour MP Dawn Butler raised the matter of Maugham’s ‘letter before claim’ to the Conservative Party during Prime Minister’s Questions, but Butler’s mention of the GLP simply generated guffaws of laughter from MPs. And later that day, in a ‘case update’ posted on their news pages (and subsequently amended – see below), the GLP falsely stated “We’re already challenging the Tories in court [sic] over this flagrant breach of our data rights. But this goes far beyond the Conservatives – no political party is above the law.” In fact, at that point all that Jolyon Maugham/the GLP had done was send a ‘letter before claim’ to the Conservative Party. And, under the Pre-Action Protocol for Media & Communications Claims, the very purpose of such letters before claim is to establish whether court proceedings can be avoided.

On 2 February, by which time the crowdfunder had raised £30,400, the GLP announced on their news pages and on social media that the Conservative Party had responded to Maugham’s letter before claim’, but “we can’t tell you what they say” as the response is “confidential” and “the intellectual property of the Conservative Party”. The GLP indicated they would “take advice from our lawyers, and report back promptly”, but later that day Dawn Butler posted on social media: “Well I can read the letter out in full on the floor of the House and there is nothing they will be able to do about it so … watch this space!”

As noted on this blog, on 6 February I submitted a complaint about the crowdfunder to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), as it appeared to me to be in breach of Rule 3.3 of the CAP Code of Advertising Practice. From its launch on 22 January, the crowdfunder had stated “Most donors donate £29 or more”, when in fact (as I had noted on social media on 26 January) the average (mean) donation to the crowdfunder was just £18.45. This appeared to me to be an attempt to misleadingly solicit larger donations than donors might otherwise make. And, on or about 5 February, after I had asked Stewart Wood – the Labour Party peer and GLP board member – to comment, the GLP effectively conceded my point by revising the crowdfunder to state: “Most donors donate £18.40 or more”.

The GLP falls for the old ‘Don’t publish this letter!’ trick

Meanwhile, on 5 February the GLP had announced on their news pages and on social media that “we have informed the [Conservative Party] that we will be publishing their response this week. We’re giving them fair warning: if they really think their letter is ‘confidential’ and ‘the intellectual property of the Conservative Party’ then they can apply for an injunction”. And on 10 February the GLP published the response (though only on their news pages, not on the crowdfunder page).

Reading the Conservative Party’s response, it’s hard not to conclude that the aim of telling Jolyon Maugham and the GLP not to publish the response was to ensure that Maugham and the GLP published the response. Because it’s a revealing and somewhat amusing demolition of Maugham’s puerile over-excitement, and his self-entitled approach to the courts and legal processes:

We were surprised to receive a ‘letter before action’ from you on behalf of [Jolyon Maugham] as there has been no previous communication from you or [Jolyon Maugham] about the concerns raised in your letter.

Further more, we are still in the process of administering [Jolyon Maugham’s] subject access request and many of the points you make are either based on [Jolyon Maugham’s] assumptions (many of which are incorrect) or reserve rights to add more things to your ‘claim’ once [he] receives the subject access response.

In all of these circumstances, your letter before action is, at best, premature and that has made it difficult to assess [Jolyon Maugham’s] proposed case against us. Nevertheless, we have tried to work with the information you have provided to prepare this response in line with the Pre-action Protocol for Media & Communications Claims.

Whilst we expect that you are familiar with the Protocol and its aims, it is evident that [Jolyon Maugham] is not, given his post on “X” [on 23 January] in which he suggests there is an active case against us, which is untrue, and also explains there is an active litigation strategy and seeks support for it. We presume that you have seen the post:

We trust that, if you have not done so already, you will explain to [Jolyon Maugham] the aims of the Protocol which are as follows, as well as the requirement for him to comply with it:

In addition, you will be familiar with the proportionality requirements of the Protocol which, again, we trust you have explained or will explain to [Jolyon Maugham]:

The action taken so far, and [Jolyon Maugham’s] public pronouncements (including his publication of your letter before action in a link on the Crowdfunding page of the Good Law Project website), are clearly disproportionate to the nature and alleged ‘gravity’ (which we dispute in any event), and he is clearly not seeking to settle “the dispute” without proceedings. It is unreasonable for him to invoke the Protocol whilst himself disregarding it. We remind [Jolyon Maugham] that he voluntarily completed our Tax Calculator, and that he selected the option on the Tax Calculator page to receive marketing emails.

We reserve our rights to bring the points we make above to the attention of the courts in any submissions on costs under Civil Procedure Rule 44.4.

And the response concludes:

We urge [Jolyon Maugham] to comply with the Protocol and discontinue this litigious process to avoid wasted and unnecessary costs for both parties and to deal with his concerns and exercise of his data subject rights in direct communication with us. If he or you institute any legal proceedings against us in this matter, we will make an application to the court for security for costs and will raise [Jolyon Maugham’s] non-compliance with the Protocol in any proceedings.

Ouch. And since then, the GLP have said no more about any legal action against the Conservative Party, about stopping other political parties “misusing your data”, or “a broad campaign to protect voters’ data rights” in the run-up to the General Election – which many politicians and commentators expect to be called before the end of this month. Along with the “further actions already planned”, Maugham v Conservative Party has simply gone missing.

Don’t tell the donors!

Not that you’d know this from the associated GLP crowdfunder. The only update to the crowdfunder page, posted on 24 January, simply notes that, with the crowdfunder having reached its initial £25,000 target, the target has been raised to £50,000. There is no update about (let alone a link to) the Conservative Party’s robust and dismissive response of 1 February to Jolyon Maugham’s silly ‘letter before claim’, and no news about the “further actions already planned”. Yet the crowdfunder remains open and, having raised £1,483 from 99 donors since 1 February, now stands at £31,763.

In short, a visitor to the GLP’s General Election: Data crowdfunding page today would not have the material information that they need to make an informed decision about whether or not to donate to the crowdfunder (and, if so, how much). And the 99 people who have donated an average of £14.98 since 1 February also did not have that material information.

Accordingly, I have renewed/updated my complaint about the GLP’s General Election: Data crowdfunding page to the ASA/CAP.

The GLP admits to being less than perfect. Only a little bit less, though.

On 11 March, in a two-post thread posted on X (formerly Twitter), the GLP admitted making false claims about this General Election: Data campaign, and also their Voter ID campaign, being “in court”:

We’re aware that, in one of our news articles, we talked of a legal campaign being “in court” when it is not, yet, in court. Mistakes do happen but this is the second time we’ve made this one, so we’re going to pick it up with the whole Good Law Project team.

We’ll always try to do better – and we’ll say when we fall below the standards we set for ourselves. We’ve also corrected the [news article of 31 January].

The news article of 31 January (see screenshot above) has indeed been corrected, by removal of the words “in court”. However, as I noted on X in response earlier today, this slippery mea culpa and correction by the GLP does not begin to address the fact that large sums of money were donated to two GLP crowdfunders while the now corrected and other false claims about the two associated campaigns being ‘in court’ were live on the GLP’s website.

As already set out at length on this blog earlier this month, in the GLP’s Voter ID campaign, some 1,400 people donated a total of £23,600 over the five days – 13-18 February – when the misleading update about legal proceedings having been issued was live on the associated crowdfunder page. Yet, since the update was replaced on 18 February, only 47 people have donated.

Similarly, with the General Election: Data campaign, from the time of Jolyon’s tweet early on 23 January until the morning of 1 February, 849 people donated a total of £16,846 to the associated crowdfunder. And between 1 February and last night’s correction of the GLP blog post, another 99 people donated a further £1,480.

As more than one person has noted on X today, it’s not easy to see the difference between the misleading solicitation of these donated sums by the GLP, and the criminal offence (under the Fraud Act 2006) of ‘fraud by false representation’. Because, while none of the £91,570 donated to the General Election: Data and Voter ID crowdfunders has gone or will go directly into the pockets of Jolyon Maugham or anyone else at the GLP, much of it will go towards keeping the GLP’s some 40 staff in their well-remunerated, self-serving jobs.

But if Jolyon Maugham or any of the other legal eagles at the GLP would like to explain the difference, I am all ears.