This action is against Nigel Farage personally. According to Goldsmith v. Bhoyrul [1998] 2 WLR 435 (QB), Derbyshire only bars political parties from suing in defamation, not individual politicians, and so Goldsmith, the then leader of UKIP, was allowed to sue his critic. Therefore the symmetry is the other way around, Andrew: if an individual politician can sue his critics in defamation, so should those whom he attacks be able to sue.

 

Laura

 

 

 

 

Rather than create odd lines in the sand, why not do as New Zealand has done and recognise a qualified privilege for political commentary, if that is what you want to protect? By making it about the plaintiff rather than the communication, questions arise about what other groups will be prevented for suing by virtue of the nature of the group. If it is a political group, would they be disentitled from suing for non political commentary? I see also that Hope not Hate is a charity, so they might even escape the classification of being a political group.

Barry Allan

An interesting defamation case reported in today's UK media:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/22/hope-not-hate-suing-nigel-farage-100k-libel-claim-ukip-leader

Essentially a political organisation is suing for large sums in general libel damages in respect of a statement about its activities (in this case Hope not Hate is suing Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party for a suggestion that it pursues violent and undemocratic means to power).

Does anyone share my concern that this ought to be regarded as raising the same issue as Derbyshire CC v Times Newspapers Ltd [1993] A.C. 534? If it's necessary to prevent public authorities from suing corporately for defamation in order to protect robust free speech, then my first reaction is that this ought to apply a fortiori to political pressure-groups.

Andrew