Tuesday 21 July 2020

Russia Didn't Interfere in the Brexit Vote?

So, we are supposed to believe that Russia didn't interfere in the Brexit vote?  Yeah right!  The Tory report into Russian interference says the Russians interfered in the Scottish referendum, but not in the EU referendum.  Does anyone seriously believe that?  Former Chair of the JIC, Pauline Neville Jones, certainly didn't. 

Is it a coincidence that the current Tory government, which has a majority on the committee that produced this report,  seeks to oppose Scottish independence, but wants to pursue Brexit, and that the Report suggests Russia meddled in the one, but not the other.  Is it really credible that Russia, whose meddling in the 2016 US Presidential Election has been proved, in support of "Brexit Trump", but was not involved in promoting Brexit itself?  Of course not. 

Is it really credible that Putin's kleptocratic regime that has been supporting nationalist movements across the EU, to oppose the EU, and work towards its break up, did not use the UK EU referendum to do so, when that was the biggest opportunity to advance Russian interests it is likely to get?  Of course not.  Putin wants to break up the EU, because it makes Russian power, sitting on the border of that Europe that much stronger in proportion.  Trump sought the same outcome.

The credibility of this report is shot to pieces from the start given what we know about Russian meddling in general, and what we know about meddling in the EU referendum by Cambridge Analytica, and its associates with all of their links also with Russia.  This report is as believable as the similar kinds of denials of culpability that come out of Russia itself.  That a right-wing Tory government feels brazen enough to produce such a Report at this time is yet another indication of how much they have move down that road towards Bonapartism, and how much they have seen the passivity over the implementation of the Tory lockdown, as a green light to push forward with such an approach.

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