This country is being badly let down by continuous and egregious lies from Boris Johnson.  There is no system in place in Parliament to stop Liars like Johnson from misleading Parliament and The Country. In order to protect our Democracy we need the system to change so that The Speaker is able to hold MPs to account when they lie in Parliament.

Currently The Speaker of the House is only responsible for ensuring that MPs comply with the rules of The House, not the content of what they say. The current parliamentary system relies on MPs being honourable and trustworthy, which is why MPs are not allowed to call each other liars or even say they are 'misleading' Parliament.  When they do, as has happened with Ian Blackwood and Dawn Butler, they are asked by The Speaker to either withdraw their accusation or leave The Chamber.  

Whilst this system seems to have worked relatively well over centuries, Boris Johnson has exposed and is abusing its weaknesses.  Currently Johnson is allowed to lie with impunity but MPs who tell the truth and call him a liar, are the ones who are punished. The system is therefore favouring MPs who tell lies over those who tell the truth. This is not Democratic.  PMQs is watched by many members of the public both here and abroad.  Our current system is being mocked as ineffective and farcical. Boris Johnson is turning The Houses of Parliament, our bastion of democracy into a comedy show.

The Speaker has said that if MPs want to call out a lie they can issue a Substantive Motion. However this is a long drawn out procedure. By the time it is under consideration, Boris Johnson's lies are halfway around the world before the truth has even got its trousers on!  

Parliament urgently needs to modernise its system so that The Speaker is enabled to call out lies as quickly as possible.  With today's technology this should not be difficult. A civil servant could be tasked with fact checking using websites such as FullFact.org. Given that Johnson routinely repeats at least 4 of his favourite lies each week, this is hardly difficult to do. Johnson should then be made to retract his lie immediately or at the very least at the begining of the next PMQs

Johnson is a serial liar and as a consequence trust in this Government has been lost. This is an extremely dangerous place for a country to be in. We need to make sure this is stopped and furthermore that it can never happen again. By lying, Johnson is  stealing our Democracy because he is effectively robbing us of our ability to make informed decisions when we vote. 

I was brought up knowing that lying is wrong and instilled this into my children. This is the case in most families, schools and subsequently workplaces.  Imagine what would happen to a Doctor for example if he/she lied to a patient? Even in advertising there are standards which prevent lies or false claims being made. However, over the last few years, lying by some MPs and particularly our PM has become rife but there appear to be no consequences.  I know hyperbole and obfuscation have always been commonplace among MPs but the outright lies that now abound are impacting significantly on our Democracy.  We should be able to trust our MPs and especially our PM to be telling us the truth.

The Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament cites 7 General Principles of Conduct. These include Honesty, Integrity and Accountability.  All three of these are sadly lacking at the moment among some MPs and particularly our PM but they are getting away with it because there appears to be no system in place to stop this.

Johnson is lying on a regular basis and averaging 4 or 5 lies at every PMQs.  Peter Oborne has listed at least 42 lies that Johnson has said in Parliament.   https://boris-johnson-lies.com  This means Johnson has broken The Ministerial Code 42 times.  Breaking The Ministerial Code is 'supposed' to result in resignation.  But because the PM is the sole arbiter of The Ministerial Code, he does nothing..

Peter Stefanovic, a lawyer has posted a video of some of Johnson’s lies. This has had more than 40 million views https://twitter.com/peterstefanovi2/status/1445746256853168139?s=21

How embarrassing is it for us British people to know that the elected leader of the U.K. has lied to such an extent that there is actually a website and a video dedicated to his lies? How many of us believed his lies sufficiently to influence how we voted??

I have written to The Speaker of The House in the hope he would be able to call out the lies told in The House of Commons.  However, I was told “It is long established that the Speaker is not – and cannot be – responsible for the content of ministerial answers. Erskine May  paragraph 22.7 states: “The Speaker's responsibility for questions is limited to their compliance with the rules of the House. Responsibility in other respects rests with the Member who proposes to ask the question, and responsibility for answers rests with Ministers.”

I was also told, “If your local Member of Parliament felt that a Minister had been deliberately misleading, as opposed to inadvertently mistaken, they could table a substantive motion criticising the conduct of that Minister and seek to initiate debates on the detail of the Government policy in question, as well as tabling questions to pursue statements madeat the dispatch box.”

However, I know that this rarely if ever happens. Certainly my MP simply toes the party line and as far as I am aware has never stood up to expose the lies being told. When Dawn Butler called Johnson a liar she was ordered to leave the House of Commons. It seems to me that it is more important in the House of Commons for MPs to keep calling each other “Honourable” rather than worrying about truth and honesty. 

I was told in the communications I had with The Speaker’s Office that because Erskine May does not permit The Speaker to call out lies, that it cannot be done.  That to me is not a satisfactory response. Just because a system is not in place now, does not mean one shouldn’t be put in place. In every other walk of life, when a system is found to no longer be fit for purpose, we change it. So why can it not be changed in what is arguably one of the most powerful and influential places in the U.K.?

In conclusion therefore - I believe The Speaker of the House should be given the authority to call out lies told in The House of Commons using modern technology as described above.  Any MP who has lied or deliberately given misleading information should have to publicly apologise and set the record straight.  This surely is what happens in other professions, so why not with MPs in The House of Commons - the so called Bastion of our Democracy?

I also believe the Speaker’s authority should be extended to ensure that the PM actually answers questions asked of him. PMQs has become a national embarrassment with Johnson rarely answering any questions asked of him.