Assessing the manifestos against our calls for change

With just over a week until polling day, the major parties’ manifestos have all been published, and the team at Full Fact have been busy assessing them. While we have been fact checking each of the manifestos and looking at the extent to which they meet our manifesto standards, we have also been investigating whether any policy proposals align with our own calls for change. 

Our verdict is now in: there are positive signs in the manifestos, including a number of commitments to reform the parliamentary system and proposals to amend the Online Safety Act. A number of parties understand that urgent action is needed to tackle bad information and have proposed concrete changes that we think would be beneficial. 

However, there are some serious shortcomings. We are not confident that any of the major parties campaigning to become the next government have robust enough proposals to protect democracy, improve honesty and trust in politics, or tackle misinformation.

1. Protect democracy during an election period

• Candidates should run honest and transparent campaigns so that everyone can make an informed decision on polling day.
• Political parties should commit to being honest in their campaign materials and not use deceptive campaign practices. 
• Political parties should commit to using AI transparently and responsibly.

Proposals to fix elections and make them more democratic were not featured heavily in any of the manifestos, despite ongoing calls from Full Fact and others to make elections more honest and transparent. The Liberal Democrats made two pledges that would bolster election integrity: Strengthening and protecting the independence of the Electoral Commission and working towards radical real-time transparency for political advertising, donations and spending.

The Green Party made similar promises to “restore the Electoral Commission’s power to prosecute, and abolish the barriers to third party campaigning.”

Disappointingly, the mention of AI in all manifestos was limited. The Labour Party are planning on cracking down on sexually explicit deepfakes, but political deepfakes are not referenced. A greater focus on artificial intelligence is needed from all parties. Full Fact is calling on parties to be transparent in their use of AI and pledge to use it responsibility, but none addressed this issue. 

2. Politicians must lead by example

• Once elected, politicians should improve public debate: get their facts right, back up what they say with evidence, and correct their mistakes.
• The next government’s Ministerial Code should be made statutory, and require ministers to use public data responsibly.
• The next Parliament must improve its mechanisms to ensure that MPs who fail to behave honestly are held to account.

Public trust in politics is at a 40-year low. That is why Full Fact continues to work directly with politicians to help them correct their mistakes when something is inaccurate. This policy call is an essential part of Full Fact’s work and despite the low visibility in the manifestos, we will continue to not only hold the new government, but all new MPs, to this high standard. 

Plaid Cymru have directly addressed how they would tackle politicians lying in Parliament, by making it a criminal offence. We think this is a step too far. In order for politicians to increase trust, they must earn it first. 

Reforms to the parliamentary system, specifically to make the ministerial code statutory, feature in a number of the manifestos. Most directly, the Liberal Democrats have pledged to “enshrine the ministerial code in legislation.” The Labour Party have also put ethical government at the heart of their pledges, with the already-announced “new independent Ethics and Integrity Commission'' being shared in the manifesto, although no further details of how this would work in practice were revealed. They also pledged to “restore confidence in government and ensure ministers are held to the highest standards.” The Conservatives made one reference to improving standards in public life, but only on a local government level. 

3. Strengthen society’s resilience to misinformation

• The next government should strengthen online safety legislation to counter harmful misinformation - especially relating to health or when generated by AI.
• Fact checkers are on the frontline in this fight: the next government must ensure that fact checkers have timely access to data from online platforms and search engines about misinformation on their platforms.
• The next government must increase resources for media literacy to give the public the skills to tackle misinformation. 

Despite the Online Safety Act being mentioned in nearly all of the manifestos, none directly stated that tackling harmful misinformation would prompt them to legislate further. Most of the calls around reforming the Online Safety Act centred around protecting children online. 

The Conservatives, SNP, and Reform UK all stated they would take steps to reduce the influence of social media companies, while Labour committed to “explore further measures to keep everyone safe online.” The Green Party pledged a “digital Bill of Rights that establishes the UK as a leading voice on standards for rule of law and democracy in digital spaces.” None of the manifestos mentioned the important work of fact checkers in tackling misinformation. 

However, there was some focus on foreign interference and disinformation campaigns. The Labour Party pledged to tackle “misinformation campaigns which seek to subvert our democracy”, the Liberal Democrats advocated for “a global convention or treaty to combat disinformation and electoral interference”, and the SNP proposed to “strengthen Scotland’s security by pushing the UK to focus on countering disinformation and misinformation.”   

Only one of the seven manifestos mentioned media literacy. This was the Liberal Democrats, who proposed that the BBC plays a more active role. While we don’t feel that the BBC should be the sole provider of media literacy, we agree that it can certainly play an important role as part of society-wide initiatives. 

We are disappointed that this issue appears to be low on the other parties’ radars. Good media literacy is an essential tool to help the public detect bad information. A nationally representative survey carried out by Ipsos UK and Full Fact in December 2023 indicated that one in four UK adults finds it difficult to distinguish true information from false information, and that one in three adults had falsely believed a news story was real until they found out it was fake. 

Full Fact is active in this policy space. We successfully campaigned for amendments to the Online Safety Act on media literacy, and have been pleased to sit on Ofcom’s Making Sense of Media advisory panel for the past few years. The next Government must commit significant funds to ensure that the whole population gains the skills to deal with bad information online. Read more about what Full Fact wants to see from the next phase of online safety legislation.  

An election is a moment for parties to reset their legislative agenda and prioritise issues that matter to the public. Full Fact will be working with whoever forms the next government to ensure that all these issues are at the forefront of its policy agenda.