The consequences of this dismal campaign will reverberate for years to come

In the era of fake news this has been the post-truth election in which nothing was quite what it seemed. When, during the first leaders’ debate, Boris Johnson said he thought the truth mattered the studio audience simply laughed in his face. On the very same evening, the Conservative Party had set up a fake FactCheck Twitter account that was pumping out attacks on Jeremy Corbyn. If the exit poll is to be believed, it worked for the Conservatives and Johnson in the short term—but the long term consequences will be dire for our politics and democracy.

This is the eighth general election I’ve covered as a journalist and it’s never been anything like this. There has always been a bit of dissembling—campaigns are inevitably based on propaganda and politicians from all parties put the best spin on things or inflate the figures to fit their cause. This time, though, the deception was on a completely different scale.

There are often personal stories that capture the imagination in the run-up to polling day. In 1992 it was the “war of Jennifer’s Ear” that hit the headlines, and in 2010 Gillian Duffy, who was called a “bigoted woman” by Gordon Brown. But the shocking photograph of a sick child forced to sleep on a hospital floor because there was no bed for him, published just days before the election, drove this campaign to new levels of dishonesty.

When Johnson was accused of lacking empathy for initially refusing to look at the picture—even pocketing the phone of the reporter who tried to show it to him—his aides confected a bogus story about a Labour activist being arrested for punching Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s special adviser. As if this diversionary tactic was not enough, there was also a murky attempt to suggest that the photograph of Jack Williment-Barr had been staged by his mother. A fake Facebook post was widely circulated by supporters of the Tory leader.

It was no coincidence that Andrew Neil’s monologue challenging Johnson to do an interview to answer his questions on trust went viral. The man who the pollsters put on track to return to Downing Street seemed to brazenly lie when he told Andrew Marr that his Queen’s Speech had been defeated by parliament—that was one of the few votes that was passed by MPs. He also continued to insist throughout the campaign that there would be no checks on trade between GB and Northern Ireland under his Brexit deal, despite all the evidence to the contrary including from his own ministers.

Labour was not entirely innocent on the honesty front either. Jeremy Corbyn’s suggestion that the NHS would be “sold off to Trump” did not stand up to scrutiny any more than his insistence that he had dealt with anti-semitism in his party. The fundamental dishonesty underlying the campaigns of the dozens of Labour candidates who do not believe their leader is fit for office was exposed by the leak of Jonathan Ashworth’s comments about the security threat posed by Corbyn (the leaking was itself another dirty trick.)

The rise of social media has also allowed a lack of transparency in political advertising online. Facebook ads posted by a company called 3rd Party Ltd, set up by Thomas Borwick the former Vote Leave chief technology officer, urged people in certain constituencies to vote Green or SNP, presumably in an attempt to split the Remain vote. In the wild west of the online world it’s impossible to know who or what to trust. In one of the more bizarre moments of the campaign, Jo Swinson was forced to deny a hoax story that she enjoyed stoning squirrels.

If the early indications of a large Tory majority are correct Johnson will be returned to No 10, but there will be a heavy price to pay. Whatever the outcome of this election, there are real dangers for our democracy from the conduct of the campaign. Without shared facts it is impossible for genuine political debate to flourish. Already trust in politicians is at an all time low and after the last few weeks it will only sink further. The cynicism shown by the leaders will fuel the cynicism of the electorate. Many voters felt an enormous sense of frustration at the “lesser of two evils” choice they faced and that will soon turn to fury if the extravagant promises and commitments fail to materialise. Any celebrations tonight will surely be short-lived.