Last month on this blog, I catalogued Jolyon ‘I am a KC’ Maugham’s three-year vendetta against the Charity Commission, including, most recently, a crowdfunded threat of legal action in relation to the Commission’s handling of an October 2022 complaint against the Tufton Street-based Global Warming Policy Foundation charity, made by Clive Lewis MP, Caroline Lucas MP and Layla Moran MP.

In that post, I noted that, in the Pre-action Protocol letter before claim sent to the Charity Commission by Jolyon’s (Not Very) Good Law Project – on behalf of the three MPs – on 4 April, the GLP had requested a response “within 14 days, so by 18 April”. And I further noted that it would be unusual for the Commission’s lawyers not to comply with that request. Yet, on 21 April, with the Charity Commission/GPWF crowdfunder standing at £3,867 from 179 donors, the GLP had promoted the crowdfunder on X (formerly Twitter), without any updating of the text to indicate whether a response had been received from the Commission.

I suggested that this amounted to 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, which 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 had responded to the GLP’s letter before claim, 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 needed to make an informed decision about whether or not to donate to the crowdfunder (and, if so, how much). So, I made a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority against the GLP and the three MPs (ASA ref: A24-1242880).

In the event, in the days immediately after 21 April, just seven people donated a total of £77, and by 14 May the crowdfunder still stood at just £3,944 from 186 donors – well short of its initial target of £40,000.

However, just before 3pm on 14 May, the GLP once again promoted the crowdfunder on X, without any updating of the text to indicate whether a response had been received from the Commission. The post simply stated: “We’re taking the first step in the legal process to challenge the Charity Commission over its delay in investigating the Global Warming Policy Foundation. Chip in to our legal action: [link to crowdfunder]”.

Then, at 6pm on 14 May, the GLP sent an email to some or all of the more than 300,000 people on their mailing list (including me), soliciting donations to the crowdfunder and stating, without any indication of whether the Charity Commission had yet responded to the GLP’s letter before claim:

We believe the [Charity Commission] must be held accountable for failing to do its job. So we’ve begun the first step of the legal process to challenge their inaction on Tufton Street’s Global Warming Policy Foundation. But we need your help to fund the costs of this challenge. Could you chip in?

Despite the absence of any information about what has happened in the case since the GLP sent the letter before claim some six weeks ago, by the following morning 384 people had made new donations totalling £7,402 (an average of £19.28). And later on 15 May the crowdfunder reached £12,321.

However, at some point that afternoon, the GLP closed the crowdfunder to new donations and added an update to the text, stating:

This legal campaign, launched by Good Law Project and cross-party MPs, has forced the Charity Commission to review the operations of the climate denial charity, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, and confirm it will publish a report on whether they’ve breached charity law. 

Thanks to your donations we’ve been able to apply this legal pressure to hold the charity accountable for their climate change misinformation but we’ll be carefully scrutinising the commission’s decision and we don’t rule out further legal action if it has failed to apply the law.

Due to a breakdown in internal communications an email was sent to a segment of our mailing list asking for donations towards this crowdfunder on the 14th May.  Donations requested on or after 14th May shouldn’t have been asked for – for which we apologise.  We have contacted all relevant donors to offer a refund.

The update to the crowdfunder text does not include a link to any response from the Charity Commission that might show how the Commission has been ‘held accountable’ by the “legal pressure” applied by the GLP and the three MPs. But a separate ‘case update’, posted on the news pages of the GLP’s website and on social media at 3pm on 15 May, includes such a link when stating:

The Charity Commission has confirmed, after more than 18 months of delay, that it will report shortly on whether the climate denial “charity”, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, has breached charity law. The confirmation comes after we said we were preparing legal action.

While this phrasing, and that used in the update to the crowdfunder text, implies this “confirmation” from the Charity Commission has come recently, the letter linked to is the Commission’s one-page response to the GLP’s letter before claim, and is dated 18 April. Which means the GLP were in possession of this response when they promoted the crowdfunder on social media on 21 April, and on social media and in an email to supporters on 14 May.

Furthermore, it is clear from the Commission’s one-page response of 18 April that, far from being”forced”, by the “legal pressure” applied by the GLP and the three MPs, to launch a review of the operation of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the Commission has been undertaking such a review since 2023 (as also reported by Byline Times in January 2023).

It is unclear what kind of “breakdown in internal communications” might have led to this failure on the part of the GLP to update their social media, campaigning and fundraising activities in line with formal legal correspondence under the Pre-action Protocol for Judicial Review. But on 22 April, four days after the GLP received the Commission’s response, and one day after the GLP misleadingly promoted the crowdfunder on social media, I asked the GLP – who pride themselves on “defaulting to transparency” and “proactively sharing information” – and the three MPs whether they had received the Commission’s response. No one ever replied, but had either the GLP or any one of the three MPs bothered to engage with my enquiry the alleged “breakdown in internal communications” might well have been avoided.

Whatever, the fact is, this week the GLP solicited £8,377 from 400+ people – in support of threatened legal action in the name of the three MPs – by false representation. And fraud by false representation is a criminal offence under the Fraud Act 2006.

Furthermore, of the three MPs, only Layla Moran has registered the crowdfunded legal action under Category 8 of the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, despite MPs being required to register “Funds established to defray legal costs arising out of the Member’s work, including ‘crowdfunded’ legal funds for action to which the Member is a party, including stating what (if any) benefit has been received by the Member.” Neither Clive Lewis nor Caroline Lucas have done so, despite the GLP having been crowdfunding legal funds since 5 April (the Register was last updated on 13 May).

Will all three MPs now register the £8,377 that was crowdfunded in error by the GLP this week – or however much of it is not refunded to the donors – as well as the £3,944 that was crowdfunded by the GLP between 5 April and 14 May?

(Incidentally, note that, to date, the GLP have not launched a crowdfunder in support of the separate complaint against the Institute of Economic Affairs to which Layla Moran refers in her entry in the Register. Originally, Clive Lewis, Layla Moran and the SNP’s Alyn Smith MP, as well as Sian Berry of the Green Party, were all complainants, but Clive Lewis and Layla Moran appear to have lost interest. And, unlike Layla Moran, Alyn Smith has not (yet) registered his interest under Category 8 of the Register.)

The GLP and the three MPs are all very keen on holding others to account. But who holds them to account?

Don’t you love farce?
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns
Don’t bothеr, they’re herе