The only Liberal Democrat MP in Scotland has survived a crowd-funded legal attempt to have him ousted from his seat, after two judges concluded that a “blatant lie” he told on live television was not a breach of electoral law.
Alistair Carmichael, the former Scotland Secretary who has represented the constituency of Orkney and Shetland for 14 years, had been accused of misleading voters in the run up to the general election by lying about his knowledge of a leaked memo which made false allegations about the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon.
Four of his constituents raised more than £170,000 to fund their legal action, which culminated in a three-day Election Court hearing in Edinburgh last month. They argued that Mr Carmichael’s comments in a television interview amounted to “false statements of fact” about his character and may have influenced voters.
But in a ruling handed down today, judges Lady Paton and Lord Matthews said that while it was clear Mr Carmichael had lied about his prior knowledge of the memo, it had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt that this constituted an “illegal practice” under electoral law.
Although their decision releases the MP from the threat of being ousted from his seat, the judges were highly critical of his conduct, describing his response to the Cabinet Office inquiry into the source of the leak as “unimpressive”. His approach was “at best disingenuous, at worst evasive and self-serving”, they added.
After the ruling was handed down, Mr Carmichael immediately released a statement attacking what he described as a “politically motivated” legal action. “It was a deliberate attempt by nationalists to remove the last Scottish Liberal voice at Westminster, and is a mark of the unhealthy polarisation of Scottish politics since the referendum,” he said.
The SNP said that while Mr Carmichael had been cleared, his reputation had been tarnished. “While he prevailed in the election court on a strict interpretation of the law, it is much more doubtful that he or his party will survive the court of public opinion,” a party spokesperson said. Westminster’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is still investigating his conduct.
The four constituents who brought the action, who may now be facing a sizeable legal bill for costs related to the case, insisted that it had been lost on “the slimmest of legal technicalities”. The judges’ critical comments about the MP made it “more of a loss for Alistair Carmichael than a win”, they added.
