Should the (Not Very) Good Law Project be diverting money away from abandoned puppies to fund Jolyon Maugham’s mid-life crisis?

I don’t think so either. My latest investigation on daft money in lawfare has found that the Good Law Project is using false claims to grift donations to the Good Law Project.

On 5 September, the Good Law Project (GLP) published on their website an article by a freelance journalist, Max Colbert, alleging that a “disabled children’s charity” has been “diverting money away from disabled children” to “right-wing think-tanks”. And, that day, the GLP, Max Colbert and Dan White, a policy and campaigns officer at the charity Disability Rights UK, who is quoted in the article, all promoted the article on X/Twitter.

The X/Twitter post by Disability Rights UK states: “Breaking News: charity for disabled children funnelling over 40% of its funds to right-wing think-tanks. Utterly shocking – an example of what happens when disability organisations aren’t run by us, for us, with lived-experience at the forefront.” The post has since had over 2,400 ‘likes’.

In fact, as was quickly pointed out to the GLP, Max Colbert, Dan White and Disability Rights UK in replies to those X/Twitter posts, the charity in question, the Street Foundation, is not a disabled children’s charity – it is clear from the Foundation’s governing document and annual reports, all freely available on the Charity Commission’s online register, that the Foundation is a grant-making trust with unrestricted charitable objectives and activities:

This information was freely available to Max Colbert, and to the GLP and Disability Rights UK, both of which have a duty of due diligence. Furthermore, the Street Foundation’s principal donor is directly connected to the Foundation, and the Foundation has no record of soliciting donations from the public (or, indeed, from anyone not directly connected to the Foundation and/or its principal donor).

In short, there is no evidence that anyone has ever donated to the Foundation while under the (false) impression that it is a disabled children’s charity, as claimed by the GLP, Max Colbert, Dan White and Disability Rights UK. And, as it is not a ‘disability organisation’, there is no reason for the Foundation to be “run by [disabled people], for [disabled people], with lived-experience at the forefront.”

The allegations made by Max Colbert and the GLP, supported and promoted by Dan White and Disability Rights UK, are based on what appears to be an erroneous entry in the charity overview section of the Foundation’s page on the Charity Commission’s online register. However, unlike the Foundation’s governing document and annual reports, this erroneous entry has no legal (or practical) significance.

As more than one lawyer has noted on X/Twitter, the Foundation’s governing document is the definitive statement of the Foundation’s purpose and objectives, regardless of whatever a brief ‘overview’ on the Charity Foundation’s website might say. So it is seriously misleading to characterise the Street Foundation as a disabled children’s charity, and to suggest, as Max Colbert, the GLP, Dan White and Disability UK have done, that money has been diverted away from disabled children to other purposes.

Indeed, according to a Civil Society news item published on 10 September, the Charity Commission has “carefully examined concerns raised” about the Street Foundation but has seen no evidence that it has been acting outside of its charitable objectives. “We do consider that information the charity presents on the online register as to its activities is potentially misleading. We’ve therefore written to the trustees with advice on how they can make their register information clearer.” In other words, by 10 September the minor, inconsequential matter of the erroneous entry in the ‘overview’ section of the Foundation’s page on the Charity Commission’s online register has been addressed, and the Charity Commission has no outstanding concerns. End of story. Nothing more to see, move along.

Nevertheless, just after 5pm on 10 September the GLP sent an email to some or all of the 300,000 people on their mailing list (including me), soliciting regular (monthly) donations to the GLP. And this email (screenshot below) repeats and amplifies the false and misleading characterisation of the Street Foundation and its actions:

Should charities be diverting money from disabled children to rightwing think-tanks?

We don’t think so either. Our latest investigation on dark money in politics has found that the Street Foundation, a disabled children’s charity, has given rightwing pressure groups over 40% of its funds over the last five years.

Diverting money away from disabled children is a new low, but the more we shine a light on these shady practices, the less these shadowy networks will think they can get away with it.

Can you help fund our campaigns on dark money and all our wider work? It’ll only take five minutes.

[Button: Yes, I’ll chip in £5 a month!]

[Button: Yes, I’ll chip in another amount!]

Every pound you give can help us shine a light on these shady goings-on. Together we can put an end to dark money in politics, and build a fairer, greener future.

Regulation 3 of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 provides that:

(3) A commercial practice is unfair if—

(a) it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and
(b) it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product.

(4) A commercial practice is unfair if—

(a) it is a misleading action under the provisions of regulation 5.

And Regulation 5 provides that a commercial practice is ‘a misleading action’:

(a) if it contains false information and is therefore untruthful in relation to any of the matters in paragraph (4) or if it or its overall presentation in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer in relation to any of the matters in that paragraph, even if the information is factually correct; and

(b) it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.

To my mind, the GLP’s use of false and misleading information about the nature, legal obligations and actions of the Street Foundation, to solicit the establishment of regular (monthly) donations to the GLP, is likely to materially distort the behaviour of the average recipient of the GLP’s email of 10 September, by causing that person to make a donation that they would otherwise not make, or to make a larger donation than they would otherwise make. Because in fact there is simply no substance to the claim of diversion of funds from disability charities or “disabled children”.

This mirrors my concern, set out in my complaint of 28 July to Trading Standards (via Citizens Advice) and documented on this blog, that the GLP’s use of false and misleading information about the number of suicides of trans-identifying young people, to solicit donations to the GLP’s Puberty blockers ban crowdfunder in June, was likely to materially distort the behaviour of the average reader of the crowdfunder and/or recipient of the associated GLP emails, by causing that person to make a donation they would otherwise not make, or to make a larger donation than they would otherwise make. Because in fact there was simply no substance to the GLP’s claim of an increase in the number of suicides of trans-identifying young people.

I have therefore renewed my complaint to Trading Standards about the Good Law Project.

Furthermore, to my mind, the GLP’s email of 10 September is in breach of Rule 3.3 (Misleading Advertising) 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. Because recipients of the GLP’s email are not provided with the material information they need to be able to make an informed decision about whether or not to establish a regular (monthly) donation to the GLP (and, if so, how much to donate each month).

Indeed, the email provides false and misleading about the nature, legal obligations and actions of the Street Foundation. In particular, there is simply no substance to the GLP’s allegation of diversion of funds or donations away from disability charities or “disabled children”. And the Advertising Standards Authority states that it “may take the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 into account when it rules on complaints about marketing communications that are alleged to be misleading.”

Furthermore, section 16 (Charities) of the Advertising Standards Authority’s Broadcast Code contains the following principle:

These rules are intended to prevent the abuse of people’s charitable impulses. Charity advertisements or advertisements that feature charities should treat with care and discretion any subjects likely to arouse strong emotions.

While the GLP is not a charity, the GLP’s false claim that the funds of the Street Foundation charity have been “diverted away from disabled children” is clearly intended to arouse strong emotions – if not outrage – and so take advantage of people’s charitable impulses. The GLP has not taken (and does not appear to be contemplating) any action that might curtail the alleged diversion of funds away from disabled children – it has simply used the false allegation to solicit funds for the GLP.

I have therefore made a complaint about the GLP’s email of 10 September to the Advertising Standards Authority (ref: A24-1260071).

While diverting money away from disabled children might well be a new low, were it actually happening, the GLP using false claims to solicit funds for its increasingly pointless lawfare is not. We must hope that the “re-conceptualisation” of the organisation on which the GLP Board has recently embarked will lead to the GLP living by the conduct standards it repeatedly demands of others.