Elections: Online Interference - Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:21 pm on 1 May 2019.

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Photo of Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Crossbench 3:21, 1 May 2019

My Lords, I wish I could share the noble Lord’s optimism. The ways that exist for interfering in elections are not confined to direct interference at the polls. We are talking about interference in campaigning, and there is ample evidence of that. There is no evidence of how successful interference has been in particular cases; the nature of the problem means that such evidence cannot exist. This is an urgent matter. I believe that the country would be ill served by further democratic processes, whether elections or referenda, where people could not tell whether they had been fairly conducted.