Poster promoting Mark Berry's ( Bez from the group Happy Mondays ) Reality Party for the 2015 general election on Chapel Street
Poster promoting Mark Berry's ( Bez from the group Happy Mondays ) Reality Party for the 2015 general election on Chapel Street, Salford where he plans to contest Hazel Blears seat. Bez is accused of forgetting to register the party with the Electoral Commision. The following is a statement on behalf of the Reality Party:- Bez did not forget to register The Reality Party – we were deregistered without warning or deliberation. We (The Reality Party) have read the article in The Independent and have been surprised by the obvious attempt to discredit Bez and The Party. Here is the truth. We received a letter from the Electoral Commission on 2nd November 2014. The letter stated that: “We had conducted a review of party identity marks (party names, descriptions and emblems) on the registers of political parties. The law requires the commission to form an opinion on whether an identity mark would be likely to be confusing, misleading or hinder an elector’s understanding of the ballot paper. Our review therefore considered these questions. The review came to the view that the party name The Reality Party is similar to another previously registered party name The Realists’ Party. We are of the opinion that if these two party names appeared on the same ballot paper a voter would be likely to confuse the two parties with each other. In addition if one party stood a candidate in an election and the other did not, we believe it would be likely that a voter would be confused between the two party names. We appreciate that you registered your party in April and at that time we did not conclude that it was confusing with other parties. We have now taken into account more recent elections, our review and research that we commissioned. Accordingly this letter requests that you apply to make changes to your party name and notifies you of how the commission will proceed in the event of this not taking place. Kindly write to us by 18 November 2014 at the latest
Size: 6000px × 4004px
Location: Chapel Street, Salford, Greater Manchester, England, Britain, UK
Photo credit: © Dave Ellison / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 2015, advertising, berry, bez, billboard, candidate, chapel, elections, happy, hoarding, mark, mondays, party, political, poster, reality, salford, street
