Humiliation for Tortoise as Left Propaganda Outlet Loses Judicial Review to Tory Party – Guido Fawkes

Humiliation for Tortoise as Left Propaganda Outlet Loses Judicial Review to Tory Party

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Co-conspirators may remember that back in 2022 James Harding’s Tortoise Media launched a judicial review against the Tory Party for its refusal to reveal membership figures in the Truss/Sunak leadership contest. Fought all the way to the Court of Appeal and the latest judgement is now in…

“The Court of Appeal Civil Division has today dismissed a claim for judicial review brought by Tortoise Media Limited (“Tortoise”) against the Conservative and Unionist Party.”

The key point here is that the Tory party was not “exercising a public function when it conducted the process for election of its leader in 2022” and so cannot be JRd for its refusal to supply what Tortoise thought was enough information about the process. It was always barmy to threaten a private organisation with Judicial Review…

A Tory source tells Guido:

“This deranged legal action was always doomed to fail. but not before Tortoise’s James Harding had burned plenty of his reader’s hard earned cash in a giant egotistical bonfire. Now loon Tortoise has joined the ranks of Jolyon, the Good Law Project and other campaigners who gum up the legal system with nonsense attempts at lawfare. No wonder their ‘journalists’ are getting ratty about the whole thing and many are asking whether they should run The Observer.”

UPDATE: A Conservative Party spokesman said:

“Once again, this publicity stunt has been a waste of time and ultimately a waste of Tortoise’s, and now the Observer’s, subscribers’ money. It is clear that the courts should not be used to conduct gesture politics and Tortoise’s ongoing failure with this claim is the latest in a line of welcome judgments against half-baked attempts at activism made by campaigners.”

Oops…

Read the full judgement below: