Author: Lou Williams | Published: 16/01/2026

Series: Coordination & Territory

(first published by Information Integrity Partnership UK)

Background

When Boris Johnson addressed the nation from Downing Street at the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic, standing in front of the Union flag and the crest of the UK Government, it would have been natural for citizens to assume that the information he delivered pertained to the entire United Kingdom. This, however, was not the case. 

The Pandemic exposed significant weaknesses in the UK’s ability to deliver consistent and trusted public health communications across multiple levels of government. Whilst rapid decision-making was essential in the early stages of the crisis, the UK’s system of devolved multi-level governance produced not only different rules, but also conflicting narratives about where authority lay and which guidance should be followed. 

This dynamic created a type of unintentional jurisdictional misinformation. Unlike deliberate disinformation, these misleading signals were the by-product of the complex quasi-federal system of governance in the UK. Citizens were left uncertain as to whether advice and rules laid out by the British prime minister related to their country or region, and why different governments had reached divergent scientific conclusions about the best strategy forward. As a result, official communications themselves became a source of confusion, eroding clarity and trust. 

I term this phenomenon the Territorial Truth Gap (TTG): a structural misalignment between the territorial boundaries of governance and the public’s expectation of consistent, honest information during a crisis. The TTG not only created fertile ground for disinformation to spread, but also weakened public compliance and understanding of legitimate rules. 

For governing future crises in the UK (and in other multi-level systems), the challenge is to narrow the Territorial Truth Gap as much as possible. By recognising how accidental, jurisdictional misinformation arises, policymakers can anticipate the risks and develop strategies to communicate with greater clarity and legitimacy across multi-level systems.

The Territorial Truth Gap in Action: The UK’s COVID-19 Response

The UK’s pandemic response offers a clear case study of the emergence of a Territorial Truth Gap and the disruption that it caused to the public’s ability to interpret official information. In the early months of 2020, the UK Government’s daily briefings from Downing Street were broadcast across the UK, framed visually by the Union flag, and the crest of the government. Whilst the UK did see a joined-up response at the onset of the pandemic – for example, the entering into the initial stay-at-home order – the failure from the beginning to properly flag the varied jurisdictional responsibilities of public health policy signposted later confusion. 

As Sargeant at the Institute for Government highlighted, “differences in the lockdown rules in each part of the UK resulted in confusion among the public about which rules applied where, undermining compliance”, there was a “failure of politicians – particularly in the UK government – and the media to make clear which rules applied where exacerbated this confusion.”[1]

Policy announcements made centrally from Downing Street by the prime minister or senior cabinet member continued beyond the initial joined-up response. This meant that many measures being discussed, such as school closures, restrictions on movement, and reopening schedules, pertained only to England, but were outlined in the same way UK-wide decisions had been made. 

Sheldon and Kenny noted that “too much of Johnson’s phased plan to loosen the lockdown actually only [applied] in England”, something which was rarely made clear in UK government communications.[2] The devolved governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland were responsible for their own public-health decisions, but this territorial distinction was rarely made explicit to citizens.  This territorial ambiguity meant that information accurate for one part of the UK circulated as misinformation in another. The TTG was visible, not as deliberate deception, but through structural misinformation: the blurring of jurisdictional boundaries that allowed accurate statements to mislead by omission. 

Social media amplified the TTG by merging structural ambiguity with the algorithmic logic of digital platforms. Policy announcements and rule changes made from Downing Street were instantly clipped and shared across X, TikTok, Facebook and alike, often detached from their original territorial context. 

Research from Cardiff University showed that 51% of respondents reported seeing coronavirus disinformation or fake news within a single month, and those exposed were far more likely to distrust government and scientific institutions,[3] presenting a clear threat to information integrity. In this environment, accurate statements for England circulated as misinformation elsewhere, resurfacing days or weeks later as outdated or misleading content. 

An LSE COVID-19 study found that many were confused by what social distancing measures they should be following in different parts of the UK. Indeed, half of the respondents incorrectly said the UK government was in charge of lockdown measures for the whole country, and nearly a quarter thought rules on exercising were UK-wide.[4]

The algorithmic prioritisation of engagement over accuracy meant that brief, emotive soundbites (a key feature of UK government communications strategy) were rewarded with reach, whilst clarification about jurisdictional scope rarely travelled as far. Users were therefore exposed not only to inaccurate, outdated or doctored information, but also to contextual misinformation. The TTG, therefore, intersected with the digital information ecosystem, turning ordinary policy updates into viral fragments of partial truth.

Paul Anderson later observed that “the confusion created by the easing of restrictions in England was compounded by the Prime Minister himself, who … failed to mention that the lifting of measures applied to England only”, and that this “double role performed by the government created confusion when approaches diverged.”[5] Such confusion was allowed to develop online via algorithmic preference, for viral, soundbite-led content. 

The Territorial Truth Gap also compounded an already high baseline of public confusion created by the pace and frequency of rule changes. Even within single jurisdictions, restrictions evolved rapidly; from lockdown tiers to circuit breakers; testing public capacity to keep up. When layered with territorial divergence, this complexity multiplied. Williams and Dienes described this phenomenon as “alert fatigue”, an overload caused by “rules that are frequently changing across place and time”, reaching the conclusion that “the public aren’t complacent, they’re confused.”[6] Citizens were not only required to track what applied to their area, but also to distinguish it from overlapping or contradictory guidance issued elsewhere in the UK. 

The TTG also created the informational vacuum in which deliberate disinformation could thrive. When the boundaries of official authority were unclear, the public turned to alternative sources to fill the void, from partisan commentators to conspiracy networks. False claims surrounding motivations for lockdown, tanks deployed onto British streets, and vast anti-vaccine posts, fed off genuine confusion and diluted official messaging.

A BBC investigation recorded that early 2020 saw viral rumours, including “tanks expected in Newcastle tomorrow”, [7]shared across WhatsApp and Facebook. The absence of a coherent, trusted centre of communication allowed these narratives to gain traction. In this sense, the TTG did not merely coexist with disinformation, it enabled it. Structural ambiguity provided the opening through which bad-faith actors reframed legitimate policy differences as deceit, further eroding institutional trust. 

The Consequences

One of the most immediate effects of the Territorial Truth Gap during the pandemic was a decline in public compliance with pandemic rules. When citizens were unsure which government’s guidance applied to them, or even dissatisfied with the cross-border contrasts, adherence became inconsistent and selective. This was reflected by Jess Sargeant at the Institute for Government, who warned that “differences in restrictions between each part of the UK, without a clear explanation, could mean the public are less likely to accept their necessity, and therefore less likely to adhere to them.”[8] Public compliance depends on clarity, consistency and legitimacy of information; the TTG helped disrupt all three. 

Across 2020 and 2021, individuals in border regions, such as north-east Wales or the Scottish Borders, were often exposed primarily to UK Government briefings delivered from London; for example, headlines leading from the six and ten o’clock nationwide news desks, before the considerably less popular local news. Reports at the time featured people attempting to cross from Wales to Cheshire during the firebreak lockdown, failing to understand or simply not caring for the jurisdictional boundaries in place. 

As the BBC reported, “when you’ve got different rules in different countries, but effectively we are still sharing the UK, it really hampers people’s understanding and it also undermines rules on both sides,” a confusion that Welsh police also faced when “people stopped by Dyfed-Powys police claimed they did not know about Wales’ different rules.”[9] Be it ignorance, misunderstanding, or a lack of interest in the rules; UK Government branded symbolism during key rule change announcements will have compounded this problem. 

The Territorial Truth Gap also accelerated the erosion of institutional trust across the UK. Trust in government during crises depends not only on outcomes, but on the perceived coherence and honesty of official communication. When citizens encountered contradictory or overlapping messages from different administrations, confidence in all of them declined. Anderson documented that approval for the UK Government’s handling of the pandemic “reached a high of 72% but gradually crumbled to 32% by the end of October 2020,” with “weak communication” and “failure of ministers to abide by the rules” cited as key drivers of the decline.[10] What emerged was not simply partisan difference, but an informational fragmentation that blurred the boundary between competence and credibility. 

Implications for Future Crisis Governance and Cross-Border Policymaking

The Territorial Truth Gap reveals a fundamental weakness in how multi-level systems communicate under pressure. In future crises, the challenge will not simply be to coordinate decisions across jurisdictions, but to maintain a coherent public narrative that protects informational integrity. The UK experience demonstrates that even well-functioning devolution can produce confusion if institutional boundaries are not matched by communication boundaries. As the Institute for Government concluded, “the UK government must reinstate fora for intergovernmental discussion, information sharing and decision making—coronavirus must unite, not divide, the UK.” When territorial competence and public perception diverge, misinformation fills the gap.

Effective crisis governance, therefore, depends on embedding communication protocols into intergovernmental mechanisms before emergencies occur. Paul Anderson similarly observed that “coordination and collaboration between the different governments was short-lived; as the uniform approach dissipated, so did intergovernmental interaction,” revealing the “urgency of reforming extant machinery to enhance communication and collaboration.”[11] The post-pandemic review of intergovernmental relations and the machinery behind it will provide the opportunity for these concerns to be addressed, something which the official Covid Inquiry has spent time reviewing. 

Beyond crises, the lessons of the TTG apply to any cross-border policy area where overlapping competences exist, such as public health, climate adaptation, migration, and economic development. In each, inconsistent messaging between administrations can distort public understanding, reduce compliance, and weaken legitimacy. 

Rhys ab Owen Thomas has argued that “the complexity of our devolution settlement is evident in the law that is applicable in Wales,” where even for lawyers, “establishing what law applies in Wales and what law applies in England can be difficult.” This confusion, he adds, is worsened by the fact that “the vast majority of people in Wales receive their news from London-based media outlets,” which “inevitably causes misunderstanding.”[12] Coordinated and transparent communication about who decides what, and for whom, is essential to sustaining trust in multi-level governance.

Having identified the causes and consequences of the TTG during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, steps can now be taken to prevent the gap from widening in future crises and policy domains. Strengthening intergovernmental coordination, embedding clarity into UK-wide policymaking, and ensuring transparent territorial labelling are essential to restoring public trust. The TTG shows that misinformation does not always arise from malice; it can emerge from structural, procedural, and opaque factors. As long as public understanding of authority lags behind institutional reality, confusion and scepticism will persist. 

Policy Recommendations 

Closing the TTG requires embedding clarity and coordination into the structures of UK governance itself. Communication failures cannot be addressed in isolation; they must coincide with wider efforts to strengthen intergovernmental cooperation and accountability.

1. Align with Reforms to UK-Wide Decision-Making
Improvements to the wider system of intergovernmental relations should explicitly incorporate communication as a standing agenda item, including at the top of the new Prime Minister and Heads of Devolved Governments Council. Following post-COVID recommendations for formal, regular and transparent engagement between governments, meetings should not only take place consistently but also produce coordinated outputs on public messaging. A dedicated communications protocol within these forums would ensure that policy divergence is clearly signposted, not discovered through contradiction.

2. Introduce a Duty on the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations
A formal duty should be placed on the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations to act as the formal guardian of territorial communication integrity. This role would require the minister to flag, review, and publicly clarify any cases where “UK-branded” policy or announcements risk creating jurisdictional confusion. Establishing such accountability would embed responsibility for informational clarity within ministerial practice rather than leaving it to ad-hoc coordination.

3. Review and Reform Media Branding Strategy
Government communication and media strategy should be reviewed to ensure transparent territorial labelling. All UK Government materials, such as press briefings, digital content, and campaign graphics, should display clearly which jurisdiction the policy applies to. As Sheldon and Kenny argued, “the failure to acknowledge and name the English focus of much governmental decision-making reflects an enduring habit of British governance,” one that has “come back to bite Johnson’s government.”2 Branding should distinguish UK-wide measures from those applying to England alone, preventing the emblem of the Union from being used in ways that obscure devolved competence.

The Territorial Truth Gap reveals a critical weakness in the United Kingdom’s system of multi-level governance, where institutional complexity can unintentionally distort the clarity of official information. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that when the boundaries of authority are blurred, accurate information can mutate into misinformation, and uncertainty can create the conditions in which deliberate disinformation thrives. Closing this gap requires more than better communication; it calls for structural reform that embeds transparency and coordination into intergovernmental processes. By aligning the flow of information with the realities of devolution, future crises can be met with coherence, credibility and trust.

References

[1] Sergeant, J. (2020). Co-ordination and divergence: devolution and coronavirus, Institute for Government. Available at: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/co-ordination-and-divergence-devolution-and-coronavirus

[2] Sheldon, J. and Kenny, M. (2020). Why have the UK’s governments diverged on easing lockdown? Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge / Centre for Constitutional Change. Available at: https://www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/blog/why-have-the-uks-governments-diverged-easing-lockdown

[3] Cardiff University. (2020). Survey of UK Public’s Exposure to and Sharing of Coronavirus Disinformation and Fake News. Available at: https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2399928/OSCAR-Survey-Report-1-V2.pdf

[4] Cushion, S., Soo, N., Kyriakidou, M., and Morani, M. (2020). Different lockdown rules in the four nations are confusing the public. LSE COVID-19 Blog. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/covid19/2020/05/22/different-lockdown-rules-in-the-four-nations-are-confusing-the-public/

[5] Anderson, P. (2021). The COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Kingdom: A Tale of Convergence and Divergence. In Nico Steytler (ed.), Comparative Federalism and COVID-19: Combating the Pandemic (London, Routledge). Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003166771-10 

[6] Williams, S. and Dienes, K. (2021). The public aren’t complacent, they’re confused—how the UK government created “alert fatigue.” BMJ Opinion. Available at: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n393

[7] BBC News. (2020). Coronavirus: The viral rumours that were completely wrong. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-53640964

[8] Sargeant, J. (2020). Co-ordination and divergence: Devolution and Coronavirus. Institute for Government. IfG INSIGHT. Available at: http://instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/coordination-divergence-devolution-coronavirus.pdf   

[9] BBC News. (2022). Covid: Different rules across UK causing fatigue, expert says. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-59920485

[11] Anderson, P. (2021). The COVID-19 Pandemic in the United Kingdom: A Tale of Convergence and Divergence. In Nico Steytler (ed.), Comparative Federalism and COVID-19: Combating the Pandemic (London, Routledge). Available at: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003166771-10

[12] Thomas, R. (2020). Ultra vires? Coronavirus and the law in Wales. Institute of Welsh Affairs. Available at: https://www.iwa.wales/agenda/2020/06/ultra-vires/