Boris Johnson: he said he had seen no evidence of Russian interference in UK politics – but it was subsequently revealed that nobody in his government had even bothered to look for it. Here, he is pictured with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The UK’s Tory government is being taken to the European Court of Human Rights over its failure to seek evidence of Russian influence in the referendum on whether the UK should leave the European Union in 2016.
The only response to have come from the Tories so far is that they think the UK should leave the European Convention on Human Rights (that this country actually founded, after World War II).
The issue is whether agents of a foreign power (Russia) have been allowed to influence the result of a poll in the UK – and whether it is possible for them to influence the result of what we have hitherto believed to be democratic elections here.
The details are in the following clip by Peter Stefanovic – and you need to brace yourself because they are damning:
Hang on to your seats as UK Government has until 26 April to respond in detail to landmark ruling in Strasbourg over its failure to investigate Russian interference in Brexit pic.twitter.com/8qWLEN7EBL
Nicola Sturgeon: she’s going all-out for Scottish independence – and who can blame her, when Boris Johnson has made such a mess of the United Kingdom?
It seems the Scottish National Party is planning to race Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein to be the first to gain independence from Boris Johnson’s UK.
The new majority party in NI has a plan to secede from the Union within the next five years, but the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon has proposed October 19, 2023 as the date for a referendum on Scottish independence.
Her party has published a Referendum Bill, to be debated by the Scottish Parliament – but this will not happen until the UK’s Supreme Court has ruled on whether the Scottish government has the power to hold a vote without UK government approval.
She has requested this approval, writing to Boris Johnson to request formal consent for the vote to be held. He has said the UK government will consider it, but its position that “now is not the time” for another referendum has not changed.
Sturgeon’s aim is to avoid legal challenges to her Referendum Bill when it comes to be debated in the Scottish Parliament; Supreme Court backing will make that possible.
So the plan is that – in the belief that Johnson’s government will refuse to back her request – it will still receive validation that it is lawful and constitutional from the Supreme Court and the Referendum Bill will be passed by the Scottish Parliament.
There is a back-up plan, which is for the SNP to fight the next UK-wide general election on a single issue: “should Scotland be an independent country?”
It is only eight years since the last referendum on Scottish independence, so one can understand why the UK government in Westminster is reluctant to tolerate another one.
In 2014, around 45 per cent of voters supported independence, with 55 per cent against. Current polling shows little change, with 48 per cent in favour and 52 per cent against.
This makes a new referendum a big gamble for the SNP. It may annoy voters into believing that the party is too focused on a single aim, to the detriment of a nation – the UK – that is trying to pick itself back up after the double-blow of Brexit and Covid-19.
Alternatively, the same phenomena may be the reasons for people to support the plan – as the current version of Brexit was Johnson’s brainchild and has been a disaster, while his policies on dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic have been similarly ham-handed, resulting in many thousands more deaths than should have happened.
In any event, the Supreme Court may simply rule against the referendum, forcing Sturgeon’s party into its fall-back plan – but what if Johnson calls a general election early in order to wrong-foot her?
Meanwhile, across the Irish Sea, Sinn Fein’s leaders have a plan to get Northern Ireland out of the union at some point over the next five years – if they can get Unionist parties to stop throwing their toys out of the pram over their election loss and allow the Assembly at Stormont to sit again.
They will be watching what happens in Scotland very carefully, no doubt.
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Northern Ireland will have a nationalist leader for the first time in its more-than-100-year history after last week’s local elections. But will the unionists accept it?
Ever since the power sharing agreement was set up that made the NI Assembly in Stormont possible, the leadership has been held by a Democratic Unionist Party representative.
In practise, the post is interchangeable with that of the deputy leader, but the role is also symbolic – and the unionists may decide they don’t like the symbol they’ll be asked to support.
This Writer has previously heard rumbles that suggest the unionists would abandon the power-sharing agreements if they can’t be the leaders; that would have serious consequences for the representation of democracy. How can an elected assembly be democratic if only one party can be allowed to take the leadership?
It seems those rumours are not set to become reality quite yet. But the unionists are demanding changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol that prevents a hard border between NI and the Republic of Ireland by keeping Northern Ireland inside the European Union’s (EU) single market for goods. It also creates a new trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
The demand isn’t unreasonable; there should not be a hard trade border between one part of the United Kingdom and the others.
But it is a part of the agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998 that there should be no hard border between it and the Republic.
And the UK’s departure from the European Union means that a border where goods and people passing through are checked has to be placed somewhere, because the Republic is a member of that bloc.
It’s a problem that can’t be solved, it seems. Certainly the UK’s Tory government seems to have no intention of trying, with promoted-past-his-pay-grade Northern Ireland Secretary Damian Lewis hinting that there will be no plan to introduce new legislation on the protocol in the Queen’s Speech next week.
There may be leeway for discussion; new assembly members have until the end of 2024 to vote on whether to continue with the parts of the protocol that create an internal trade border within the UK.
One aspect of the change to a majority nationalist assembly that is unlikely to cause trouble – at least for now – is Sinn Fein’s aspiration to unite the Province with the Republic once again.
The law rules that the UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary may only agree to hold a referendum on reunification if it seems a majority of people in the Province are likely to support that change – and that hasn’t happened yet.
The most recent opinion poll, published in April, puts support at around 33 per cent.
Party leader Mary Lou McDonald has said planning for a unity referendum – also known as a border poll – would come within a five-year framework.
So it seems that, even if a way can be found to resolve problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, arguments are likely to break out over reunification.
It seems clear that Northern Ireland’s history will continue to be difficult for some time to come.
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The ballot box: come on, Wales – let’s have a chance to tell Boris Johnson to get stuffed!
Welsh people are showing surprising loyalty to the United Kingdom after being progressively abused by Tory governments since 2010.
They are lagging behind Northern Ireland and Scotland, where polls show a majority of people in both countries want referenda on whether to quit the union.
In Northern Ireland, 68 per cent of people are demanding the right to choose whether to stay in the UK or join the Republic of Ireland.
Scotland will get its referendum if Nicola Sturgeon has her way.
Only Wales is dragging its feet over the chance to show national displeasure with Boris Johnson’s travesty of leadership – widely believed to be the worst government in UK history.
The latest poll in Wales shows just 28 per cent of people wanting independence.
It makes you wonder where people here get their news.
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Mark Drakeford: Wales’ First Minister has described the Tory government in Westminster as “utterly shambolic”.
Has any UK-based government won six successive terms? That’s what Labour just achieved in Wales.
It shows the advantage that sitting governments can use, when they actually deliver on their promises and do their best to help the population.
The mainstream media have been unforgivably quiet about it. Perhaps the London-based hacks think Wales doesn’t matter. They certainly pay more attention to Scotland, where the SNP has won only its fourth successive term.
@BBCNews “SNP wins an historic 4th term”. How about “Welsh Labour wins an historic 6th term in Senedd”? 🤷🏻♀️
That could all change very soon, with both devolved governments likely to support independence referenda if proposals are put before them.
I know Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to make it happen. The surprise here is that Mark Drakeford has said he will support an independence referendum in Wales, if there is a majority in the Senedd for holding one.
Mark Drakeford tells BBC News unequivocally that if there was a majority in Senedd for a Welsh independence referendum, he would support holding one. Says the Scotland policy is a matter for Scottish Labour but I think the wry smile on his face made his position fairly clear…
The contrast with Labour’s performance in England could not be more extreme – as social media commenters have merrily pointed out:
The fact Labour socialists performed brilliantly and Labour centrists performed abysmally fully vindicates everyone who said a breakaway socialist party could succeed. Just imagine what might have been if Corbyn and others had made that step.
Wales chose decent, proud socialists over all the noise from UKIP, Abolish the Welsh Assembly and the forces of the right.
Why? Because there weren’t a bunch of self-serving Centrists around to sabotage it. There’s a lesson there.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza 🏳️🌈 (@TheMendozaWoman) May 8, 2021
The lesson was very clearly put by Simon de Jever: “Drakeford is a left wing Corbyn supporting leader. Starmer is a Corbyn bashing centrist. Drakeford has had a spectacular win even in Brexit areas and Starmer has reduced the Labour vote to 29%.”
And Andrew Feinstein added: “Makes you think Starmer’s purge of the left and massive shift to the right might have been a mistake!”
Ya think?
The victory creates huge problems for Keir Starmer because his failure will be measured against Drakeford’s success. Some are already laying bets that Drakeford’s suspension from the Labour Party is already in the mail.
But if Drakeford is serious about permitting an independence referendum, it could create a monumental problem for Boris Johnson.
He can’t refuse permission for such a poll on the basis that we’ve had one recently (as in Scotland) because we haven’t.
He can’t rely on Wales rejecting independence because he knows his government has been so appallingly useless that many Welsh people may consider going it alone to be preferable – even if it means a few lean years in the immediate future. We’ll have hardship under the Tories indefinitely.
And it means he could be in line for a double dose of shame as the prime minister who presided over the end of the United Kingdom.
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This can’t be the first time an organisation harmed its own reputation with wild claims.
But Cambridge Analytica seems to have engineered its own destruction with its claim to be able to influence people using data it had accrued about them.
These referred to Americans but it seems they raised questions about the organisation’s role in the UK’s referendum on membership of the European Union in 2016.
As a result, the (UK’s) Information Commissioner launched an investigation into the company in 2017 – and it collapsed in 2018.
Were the two events related? If so, it could be argued that Cambridge Analytica’s own boasts destroyed it.
Cambridge Analytica had repeatedly claimed in its marketing material to have “5,000+ data points per individual on 230 million adult Americans”, suggesting it had incredible power to micro-target individuals with suggestive political messaging using a giant psychographic database.
However, the investigation concluded that “based on what we found it appears that this may have been an exaggeration” and much of the company’s activities followed “well recognised processes using commonly available technology”.
So did it attract the unwanted attention of the information regulator needlessly?
Well, it seems the firm wasn’t involved in the EU referendum campaign at all:
[Elizabeth Denham, the Information Commissioner] said she found no evidence that Cambridge Analytica were actively involved in the EU referendum campaign, beyond an early proposal to work with UKIP which was not put into action.
It turns out the Information Commissioner found no evidence of collusion with Russia to influence the referendum either:
[Denham] said her team also found no evidence Cambridge Analytica aided Russian intervention in the UK political process.
Particularly interesting to This Writer, though, was the revelation that
the company’s data protection practices were lax “with little thought for effective security measures”.
Couple this with the following –
Cambridge Analytica founder Alexander Nix was disqualified from acting as a company director for seven years for “offering potentially unethical services to prospective clients” including bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents, and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns.
– and we see that the firm (or at least its founder) was quite happy to break the Data Protection Act left, right and centre by obtaining information and then distributing it to the public in breach of the law.
This links with my recent court case against the Labour Party, in which I gave evidence that employees had put together false information about me and passed it to newspapers who then published it to thousands of people.
Labour’s representative tried to claim that, even though the party (as represented by its general secretary) was the data manager responsible for the way the information was used, it was not responsible for the acts of any employees because (as I understand it) there is no evidence that it ordered them to commit those acts.
But then, they wouldn’t have had access to this – false, in my case – information if Labour had not ordered them to compile it.
Put the two cases together and it seems the Data Protection Act is a dead letter – unless a person whose information has been misused can prove exactly who misused it and why they did it. That’s going to be impossible in most cases, isn’t it?
I was therefore hoping to read that the Information Commissioner was bringing recommendations to the government that would strengthen the law.
And I was keen to see what they would be.
I was disappointed. It seems all the information that we are obliged to provide to organisations, just to get on in modern life, is vulnerable to abuse every way you can imagine. Not a happy thought!
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Bosom buddies: Boris Johnson with Russian industrialist Alexander Temerko. All perfectly innocent?
Now we can all see why Boris Johnson did not want the so-called ‘Russia Report’ released before the general election last year.
The report – released today (July 21) by Parliament’s new Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) – shows that successive Conservative governments have welcomed Russian oligarchs “with open arms”, giving them access to political figures “at the highest levels” – and made absolutely no attempt to investigate Russian interference in referendums and elections; in fact, the Tories “actively avoided” doing so.
This has led, the report states, to the growth of an industry of “enablers” who are “de facto agents of the Russian state”. The report does not explicitly state that these enablers include Conservative government politicians, but its assertion that Russia had access to “the highest levels” of political figures certainly suggests that this is the case.
And the fact that Russia has influence “at the highest levels” seems to have made it almost impossible to organise a response.
The report refers to the defence of UK democratic processes as a “hot potato” over which no government organisation wanted to take the lead in conducting an assessment of Russian interference.
In its response to the report today, the Tory government has said it has seen no evidence of interference in (this is the example it gives) the Brexit referendum. It seems clear that there is a good reason for that: nobody was looking. The government has said it sees no reason to conduct a retrospective investigation into such interference, which looks like a tacit admission of guilt in the light of the report. Committee member Stewart Hosie said, “That is meaningless if they haven’t looked for it.”
The ISC states that “social media companies must take action and remove covert hostile state material. Government must ‘name and shame’ those who fail to act”. The latter demand seems unlikely to happen as it seems clear that the Tory government does not want to do anything.
One reason for that may be the fact that the Tories have been delighted to welcome Russian money and the oligarchs who owned it, “providing them with a means of recycling illicit finance through the London ‘laundromat’.”
It is unlikely that Russia actually interfered in the mechanics of voting in general elections or the Brexit referendum; the UK’s paper-based voting system “makes actual interference with the mechanism difficult” – but “we should not be complacent about other forms of interference”.
The report states that Russian influence seems to have been exerted prominently in the social media, whose bosses had no interest in preventing it.
It states: “There have been widespread allegations that Russia sought to influence voters in the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU: studies have pointed to the preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and Sputnik, and the use of ‘bots’ and ‘trolls’, as evidence.
“The actual impact of such attempts on the result itself would be difficult – if not impossible – to prove. However what is clear is that the Government was slow to recognise the existence of the threat – only understanding it after the ‘hack and leak’ operation against the Democratic National Committee, when it should have been seen as early as 2014.
“As a result the Government did not take action to protect the UK’s process in 2016. The Committee has not been provided with any post-referendum assessment – in stark contrast to the US response to reports of interference in the 2016 presidential election. In our view there must be an analogous assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum.”
In their statement, the Tories have made it clear that they will not conduct a retrospective investigation: “The Intelligence and Security Agencies produce and contribute to regular assessments of the threat posed by Hostile State Activity, including around potential interference in UK democratic processes.
“We keep such assessments under review and, where necessary, update them in response to new intelligence, including during democratic events such as elections and referendums.
“Where new information emerges, the Government will always consider the most appropriate use of any intelligence it develops or receives, including whether it is appropriate to make this public. Given this long standing approach, a retrospective assessment of the EU Referendum is not necessary.”
This is hardly encouraging, given that the ISC report makes it clear that the Tory government has deliberately avoided looking for Russian interference.
Labour has delivered the weak-ass response that we have come to expect from Keir Starmer’s sub-Tory party, courtesy of Lisa “I wouldn’t disclose plans to sell off the NHS” Nandy.
“The report is very clear that the Government has underestimated the response required to Russia and it is imperative we learn the lessons from the mistakes that have been made,” she said. “The Labour Party calls on the Government to study the conclusions of the report carefully and take the necessary steps to keep our country safe.”
Fat chance! And she knows it. The people of the UK needed a much more robust response, calling out Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his extremely strong ties with Russians – he plays tennis with them in return for donations to the Tory Party, remember – and demanding a full-strength investigation into connections between Conservative government members past and present and Russians in the UK – both private citizens and representatives of that country’s government.
I’ll say it again, for clarity:
What we need now is a comprehensive and independent investigation by law-enforcement agencies into connections between anybody who has been a member of a Conservative government over the past 10 years (including members of other parties who have allied with the Tories – the DUP and the Liberal Democrats) and Russians in the UK who have been here either as private citizens or as representatives of that countries government. Did – and do – these relationships pose a threat to the UK’s security and to its democracy?
And if so, should those who have created that threat be arrested and charged with treason?
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Attorney General Geoffrey Cox was brought to the House of Commons to answer questions about the Supreme Court’s decision that his advice on the prorogation of Parliament was entirely wrong.
But he seems to have spent much of his time at the Dispatch Box ranting about Brexit and challenging the Opposition parties to support a general election – just to get him and his boss Boris Johnson off the hook.
Why would anybody want to do that?
He started by saying that the government accepts the judgement of the Supreme Court that Parliament should not have been prorogued without any reason – and certainly without any good reason. He claimed the government acted in good faith and in the belief that their approach was both lawful and constitutional.
He justified this claim by reminding MPs that “these are complex matters, on which senior and distinguished lawyers will disagree. The divisional court, led by the Lord Chief Justice, as well as Lord Doherty in the outer house of Scotland, agreed with the Government’s position, but we were disappointed that, in the end, the Supreme Court took a different view. Of course, we respect its judgement.”
But he did not rule out the possibility that the Boris Johnson administration would try to prorogue Parliament again.
It was when Rory Stewart asserted that the Supreme Court had made a “profoundly conservative” decision to support the sovereignty of Parliament, and that it was for the Commons – “the only directly elected representatives of the people” – to determine the form in which Brexit takes place that Mr Cox lost his rag.
“This Parliament has declined three times to pass a withdrawal Act to which the Opposition had absolutely no objection,” he said. “We now have a wide number in this House setting their face against leaving at all. When this Government draw the only logical inference from that position, which is that we must leave therefore without any deal at all, they still set their face, denying the electorate the chance of having their say in how this matter should be resolved.”
Of course this is not true, and as a lawyer Mr Cox must have seen the falsehood in his argument.
If MPs were against leaving the EU at all, then it is not logical to infer that the UK must leave without a withdrawal agreement – in other words, on the worst possible terms.
Still, we may welcome the admission that Boris Johnson’s government is working to achieve a “no deal” Brexit – and has been working towards it since before it tried to prorogue Parliament.
And Mr Cox must also know that Labour policy is to give the electorate a chance to decide whether to support a future withdrawal agreement or remain in the EU, in a future referendum that the Conservatives have consistently refused to let voters have.
Then he launched into the rant that has become so well-repeated on TV and in the social media:
“This Parliament is a dead Parliament. It has no moral right to sit on these green benches… This Parliament is a disgrace.”
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox says “cowardly” MPs for not having “the courage to face the electorate” in a general election. pic.twitter.com/2NcQcgMEed
The simple fact is that the current UK Parliament isn’t dead at all; it has another three years to sit until its time is up.
Boris Johnson – thanks to people like Mr Cox – is in a mire entirely of his own making. Thanks to their joint mistakes, they are faced with a simple choice: achieve a Brexit deal by October 31 or, failing, beg the EU for another extension so they (or someone else) can achieve one in the future.
If they are forced into the latter option, then Jeremy Corbyn may support a general election – because the Conservatives will have shown the electorate that they are entirely unworthy of support.
Parliament is, therefore, performing exactly the role it is intended to carry out – holding the government to account.
The simple fact is that Mr Johnson and his cronies are now in a position where they cannot force the UK into leaving the EU on terms that benefit only themselves and their business partners; those terms must be transparent and they must have the support of MPs who have the well-being of their constituents at heart, rather than the possibility of boosting their own bank balances by selling off vital services like the NHS to Donald Trump’s United States (for example).
Journalist Paul Mason drew the obvious conclusion:
What's important about Cox's disgraceful slur "dead parliament" is that the ostensible reason they prorogued was to introduce a whole new year's worth of laws into it via the Queen's Speech. It reveals the lie: Prorogation was always about shutting down Parliament.
Exactly. From this we may also infer that the intention has always been to silence your elected representatives until the “no deal” Brexit – that Mr Cox has admitted the government wants – had been achieved. Then Mr Johnson wold have called an election in the belief that voters would support the prime minister who had actually managed to take the UK out of the EU, no matter what form that departure took.
An immediate election would also be advantageous to him in that it would deprive voters of the chance to experience the consequences of Mr Johnson’s “no deal” Brexit before making their choice.
Geoffrey Cox now blaming the Opposition for not passing the Conservatives withdrawal Bill and now saying the HoC has no longer a right to sit. This from a party with no majority who has been found to have acted unlawfully. Disingenuous.
Now, stuck between a rock and a hard place, Mr Johnson and his ministers – including Mr Cox – can only rail at the other MPs who are forcing them to do what the nation requires, falsely accusing the Opposition parties of cowardice in refusing to approve a general election while a “no deal” Brexit is still achievable.
Despite the Attorney General's theatrics to distract from unlawful Tory actions, one thing is clear.
Labour will force a General Election once the extension preventing No Deal is nailed down.
That could be right after the EU summit. Or sooner if the extension is sorted before.
All things considered, we have many reasons to be grateful to Mr Cox; he has given the game away and no member of the government can now deny that it has been caught, disgracefully trying to silence democracy.
But the manner in which the Attorney-General put his case was arrogant and provocative. No wonder Labour’s Barry Shearman was infuriated:
Dr Jennifer Cassidy tweeted: “If you watch anything today, watch this. Barry Shearman, usually a calm figure speaks with the fury, frustration and anger that millions of us feel.”
Oh – and there’s one more pearl from Mr Cox’s appearance before Parliament: He said the 2016 EU referendum is not binding on the government; there is no need to go through with Brexit at all.
Here’s what he said: “The law in relation to the referendum is that it was not binding upon this Parliament. It was binding in every moral sense upon those who promised the British people that it would be implemented, but it was not binding as a matter of law.”
Wow has Cox just admitted that the Referendum isn’t binding in law?
— Dr « Keep Calm & Carp On » Lindsay Maxwell (@ParisDaguerre) September 25, 2019
Yes.
This is welcome as it will shut down, once and for all, the argument that has raged about it ever since the result became known.
So, ultimately, this arrogant blowhard has done us all a great service.
He has admitted that Boris Johnson has spent his entire period as prime minister trying to dodge democracy, in a bid to force a “no deal” Brexit with its unwanted consequences onto the public, based on the result of a plebiscite that has no legal binding whatsoever.
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At odds over Brexit: Tom Watson (left) and Jeremy Corbyn.
Let’s have a bit of clarity about Labour Party policy on the European Union and Brexit.
It is that, after Boris Johnson has been prevented from taking the UK out of the EU without any withdrawal agreement at all, Labour wants a general election at the earliest opportunity.
The intention is that this would result in a Labour – or Labour-led – government that would go back to the EU27 to negotiate a new withdrawal agreement.
This agreement would then be put to the people of the UK in a second referendum, alongside an option to remain in the EU.
It has been suggested that if Labour fails to get the deal wanted by party leaders, it will advise people to support remaining.
Tom Watson can say whatever he wants but it won’t change party policy; he is simply trying to cause mischief.
So his speech today (September 11), calling for a referendum before an election, is meaningless.
It’s a valid position, sure – one could argue very reasonably for a referendum before an election, because it would end an issue that has split voters across the UK, bringing us all back together to vote on the other issues affecting us, that have suffered a lack of publicity and debate due to Brexit.
An opposing argument may be that having a general election first would give a resulting Labour government a mandate to hold the negotiations and the second referendum it plans; this course of action would be approved by the public.
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Did you notice, during social media coverage of yesterday’s (August 31) #StopTheCoup demonstrations, that took place across the whole of the United Kingdom and involved hundreds of thousands, if not more than a million people, that some used the hashtag #WheresJoSwinson?
Well, now we know.
She was on holiday.
And, as some say, the optics are really bad because of her lie about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the EU referendum:
This was a lie @joswinson. Jeremy Corbyn wasn’t on holiday during the referendum.
However, during the day of huge protests nationwide to defend our democracy you WERE on holiday.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with going on holibobs every now and then (if you can afford it these days!) but some times are inappropriate.
MPs have just had a lengthy summer break. As leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ms Swinson knew that the result of the Conservative leadership election was likely to put someone in charge who would make changes that require a concerted show of opposition from, well, the Opposition.
But when the moment came, she was nowhere to be seen.
What a hypocrite. Liberal Democrats must be cringing with humiliation.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
Vox Political needs your help! If you want to support this site
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