Online Rumours Swirling Around Downing Street

What is going on that a 'superinjunction' has been issued, making it a criminal matter to even mention the injunction? Hopefully, it'll bring Red Keir down before he can do any more damage. 

From The European Conservative

By Graham Barnfield

‘Superinjunction’ deployed, possibly to prevent discussion of potential scandal.

British users of X, formerly Twitter, could be intrigued to see #superinjunction trending in the United Kingdom today, Tuesday, October 1st. While this puts ‘Amanda Abbington’ (1,939 posts) and ‘Underground Transgender Mafia’ in the shade, the repeated naming of a peculiar legal tort online poses more questions than it answers.

First of all, the prefix ‘super’ indicates that mentioning the existence of the injunction is itself potentially classified as contempt of court (a criminal offence). Since the term was first coined—in 2006 when Trafigura obtained an injunction blocking coverage of its Ivory Coast toxic waste dumping—critics have deplored the restrictions on a free press played by these litigious manoeuvres. As part of issuing one, a judge aims to prevent the disclosure of who initiated the legal action from the outset.

Old-style injunctions typically involved a public figure’s lawyers waking a judge in the night to prevent the publication of an embarrassing story in the next day’s newspapers. The superinjunction prevents reporters from naming the litigant responsible for getting the procedure under way, as well as mention of the substance of the story.

Set up in 2011 to explore the impact of such measures, the Neuberger Committee developed this more precise legal definition:

an interim injunction which restrains a person from: (i) publishing information which concerns the applicant and is said to be confidential or private; and (ii) publicising or informing others of the existence of the order and the proceedings (the ‘super’ element of the order).

As more than one wag has put it, the first rule of superinjunction club is we don’t talk about superinjunction club.

Whereas the 2010 case of ‘John Terry vs. Persons Unknown’ is seen as having discredited the practice, not least amid widespread social media defiance, scope remains for the rich and powerful to deploy such risky methods.

Which brings us to the s-word now trending on X. The formal position is that by mentioning its very existence, one could end up facing a criminal court (hence the caution in the present article). ‘Proper’ journalists would know this already, intone the Twitter scolds. Others have concluded that flippant treatment meted out on social media to this latest rumoured superinjunction actually shows that it doesn’t really exist. After all, who in their right might would take the risk?

Either way, the widespread involvement of members of the public in online commentary about what’s supposedly going on in high places shows how controlling the flow of information—and speculation—through the legal system is much more difficult than spiking a single print media story prior to publication back in the golden age of Fleet Street.

At the time of writing, depending on the metrics, there’s somewhere between 1,282 and 11.8K posts on X using variations of ‘superinjunction’. Given that the erstwhile Twittersphere is not supposed to mention them at all, at the very least this suggests that the ‘Streisand effect’ is in full flow.

Some online commentators want to use this hypothetical legal threat to interrogate those at the very top of British politics. They suggest that the possible superinjunction hides a story even more embarrassing than the recent spate of catastrophic communication difficulties in and around last month’s Labour Party conference.

While some are using a mixture of text and images to hint at a scandal, right-leaning pundits such as Isabel Oakeshott and Dan Wootton are threatening to break a story explicitly—one which they claim is already common knowledge among Westminster correspondents. In response, pro-Labour voices are circling the wagons and aiming to discredit those who claim to know of additional scandals which could discredit the beleaguered PM. 

Whatever the truth of the latest rumours, sunlight remains the best disinfectant. Superinjunctions are a blight on a free press that have no place in a democratic society.