‘Wales has done something unusual – it has enacted a duty to prohibit electoral lies before deciding what the prohibition will look like. Since 27 June 2026, section 13 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 has required the Welsh Ministers to make provision against false or misleading statements of fact made to affect who is elected to the Senedd, but it leaves the decisive choices to a future Conduct Order. I argue that Wales should resist a single general offence. It should begin by separating three kinds of conduct that are more amenable to legal regulation than the rest – falsehoods about voting mechanics, demonstrably false factual claims in controlled campaign material, and synthetic impersonation. The distinction matters because each gives an adjudicator a way to identify falsity without becoming an arbiter of political truth.’
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UK Constitutional Law Association, 15th September 2026
Source: ukconstitutionallaw.org