ELECTION watchdogs have thrown out an attempt to launch a new political party with the slogan “Sod Scottish Referendum”.
The Electoral Commission last week ruled the phrase was too “offensive” to appear on election leaflets and ballot papers.
The slogan was proposed by the new English Independence party, founded by Neil Humphrey from Nottingham, who also tried unsuccessfully to register it during the 2014 referendum itself.
The Commission also rejected five other offensive slogans from the party, including “Keep Calm and Vote English”, “Hang Murderers Death-Penalty” and “Just Hang’m High to Die”.
However English Independence was registered as a party last week, with approved slogans including “Full English Devolution” and “Independence from Europe, and the UK”.
Humphrey, 47, was previously in Labour, Ukip, the LibDems and the English Democrats, and stood for the latter in Berwick-Upon-Tweed in the 2015 general election, getting 88 votes.
He has now set up the English Independence party, and is considering standing as a candidate in the upcoming Batley and Spen by-election caused by the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox.
He said he would be appealing against the Commission’s decision to reject the slogan he wanted to use for that contest, “Lethal-Injection Death Penalty for Murder”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel