Carmichael controversy prompts concerns
Confusion resulting from a recent decision by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust has caused concern
Six leading Scottish academics are among those who have made public their concerns over the confusion that has resulted from a recent decision by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust (JRRT) Ltd. to help pay the legal fees of the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael.
The academics, writing in the Scottish newspaper The National, expressed their fears that the JRRT’s involvement with Alistair Carmichael, the MP for Orkney and Shetland since 2001, had damaged the reputation, in particular, of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
They stressed that the non-charitable JRRT and the charitable JRF are two ‘wholly separate and independent organisations’ and praised the enormous contribution that JRF had made in Scotland to support research on poverty and social justice issues.
The legal costs arose from the ‘Frenchgate’ case, when four of Carmichael’s constituents took him to court over the leaking of, and his subsequent lying about, a memo in which it was claimed that first minister Nicola Sturgeon had said she wanted David Cameron to remain as prime minister.
Carmichael’s special advisor leaked the memo to the Daily Telegraph, which published it. The informa-tion in it was then discovered to be false. Carmichael denied involvement, but a Cabinet Office enquiry found that his office was behind the leak.
In their article the six academics highlighted the good work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and its importance to Scottish academia, adding that the JRF ‘plays a vital role in providing politically impartial analysis, and helps to counter the London-centric nature of debate emanating from many of the London-based think-tanks’.
Their statement was prompted by the news that Carmichael had received a substantial grant from the JRRT to help pay his legal costs. An initial advance of £34,000 was made in January 2016, and a final further award of £16,000 was paid in March, once final liabilities in the case were known.
The constituents, known as ‘the Orkney Four’, claimed that Carmichael had broken Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which makes it illegal to publish false statements about a candidate’s ‘personal character or conduct’ for the purpose of ‘affecting the return of any candidate at the election’. Carmichael won the case on the grounds that the lie was political rather than personal, but he was not awarded costs and now finds himself with a £150,000 bill.
The JRRT, which states on its website that it does not fund legal fees, explained that the grant was awarded ‘to uphold existing case law about the circumstances in which a legitimately elected MP can be unseated’.
In a statement for the Friend, the JRRT said: ‘A decision in this area comes down partly to whether someone who has defended themselves successfully in court should nonetheless find themselves the subject of financial ruin. On balance our directors decided this would be a disproportionate consequence of the case. Considering these circumstances, they decided it was reasonable to provide some assistance to someone who, despite his serious and acknowledged mistakes, has undoubtedly done a lot of good for his constituency, for Scotland and for the United Kingdom.’
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation issued a statement late last week making clear that the JRRT is ‘an indepen-dent and completely separate organisation to JRF’.
There is concern among Scottish Friends that damage has been done to the reputation of Quakers in Scotland. The long-term impact on the JRRT and the JRF remains to be seen.
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