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EU referendum won through fraud, whistleblower tells MPs

Former Cambridge Analytica worker says Brexit result may have been different without financial ‘cheating’

Alex Hern and Dan Sabbagh Tue 27 Mar 2018 20.12 BST First published on Tue 27 Mar 2018 17.20 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/27/brexit-groups-had-common-plan-to-avoid-election-spending-laws-says-wylie

Cambridge Analytica whistleblower: Vote Leave 'cheating' may have swayed Brexit referendum – video

The EU referendum was won through a fraud, the whistleblower Christopher Wylie has told MPs, accusing Vote Leave of improperly channelling money through a tech firm with links to Cambridge Analytica.

Wylie told a select committee that the pro-Brexit campaign had a “common plan” to use the network of companies to get around election spending laws and said he thought there “could have been a different outcome had there not been, in my view, cheating”.

“It makes me so angry, because a lot of people supported leave because they believe in the application of British law and British sovereignty. And to irrevocably alter the constitutional settlement of this country on fraud is a mutilation of the constitutional settlement of this country.”

The EU referendum was won through a fraud, the whistleblower Christopher Wylie has told MPs, accusing Vote Leave of improperly channelling money through a tech firm with links to Cambridge Analytica.

Wylie told a select committee that the pro-Brexit campaign had a “common plan” to use the network of companies to get around election spending laws and said he thought there “could have been a different outcome had there not been, in my view, cheating”.

“It makes me so angry, because a lot of people supported leave because they believe in the application of British law and British sovereignty. And to irrevocably alter the constitutional settlement of this country on fraud is a mutilation of the constitutional settlement of this country.”

Vote Leave has repeatedly denied allegations of collusion or deliberate overspending. When they first surfaced over the weekend, Boris Johnson, who fronted the campaign, said: “Vote Leave won fair and square – and legally. We are leaving the EU in a year and going global.”

Wylie, who used to work for Cambridge Analytica, gave evidence in a near four-hour session before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee. He made a string of remarkable claims about Brexit and Cambridge Analytica, including that his predecessor, Dan Mursean, died mysteriously in a Kenyan hotel room in 2012 after a contract in the company turned sour.

Wylie said it was striking that Vote Leave and three other pro-Brexit groups – BeLeave, which targeted students; Veterans for Britain, and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party – all used the services of the little-known firm Aggregate IQ (AIQ) to help target voters online.

He told MPs that AIQ was effectively the Canadian arm of Cambridge Analytica/SCL, deriving the majority of its income by acting as a sub-contractor. He said AIQ had also worked with Cambridge Analytica on a failed campaign to discredit Muhammadu Buhari in the Nigerian presidential election, which included hacking into his emails and spreading disinformation via Islamophobic videos that showed people “with their throats being cut”.

“So, the first question that I have is: why?,” Wylie said. “Why is it that all of a sudden this company, that has never worked on anything but Cambridge Analytica projects, that had no public presence, somehow became the primary service provider to all of these supposedly independent and different campaign groups.

“When you look at the accumulation of evidence, I think it would be completely unreasonable to come to any other conclusion: this must be co-ordination, this must be a common purpose plan.”

Wylie was speaking after it was alleged that Vote Leave had broken electoral law by donating £625,000 to BeLeave, which in turn spent the money on Aggregate IQ. Vote Leave officially spent £6.77m, just below the £7m limit, but if BeLeave’s spending was taken into account it would breach that limit.

The allegations of collusion and overspending were also discussed by MPs in the Commons during an emergency debate attended by only a few Conservative MPs. Having secured the debate, the Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake asked in his opening speech whether the government could be confident that nobody from Vote Leave who now worked for the Conservatives was going to be charged with electoral offences. Tory MPs interjected to ask him whether he could be sure the remain campaign had not overspent.

Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet office minister, said the Electoral Commission needed to have all the resources and power available to complete its inquiry into spending by Vote Leave, and referenced the roles of Johnson and Michael Gove in its campaign.

“It’s because the government is in it up to its neck,” he said. “Two cabinet ministers fronted the organisation. There they sit, week after week, the Bonnie and Clyde of Brexit.”

Trickett said that, if necessary, the police should also investigate the allegations.

Chloe Smith, the minister with responsibility for electoral law, said she would not comment on the allegations while they were under investigation. She said, however, that the Electoral Commission had the resources it needed, and was set to underspend on its budget this year.

AIQ has denied it is linked to Cambridge Analytica. Jeff Silvester, its chief operating officer, told the Times Colonist, that “AggregateIQ has never been, and is not a part of, Cambridge Analytica or [its parent firm] SCL. AggregateIQ has never entered into a contract with Cambridge Analytica.”

However, Wylie told MPs that, while technically true, the corporate structures were designed to be confusing and ensure that regulators could not always keep up with what was going on.

Wylie said he was surprised that Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave’s campaign director, had discovered AIQ, which did not have its own website. He said he had one meeting with Cummings in late 2015, when he made an unsuccesful pitch for work.

“Data was really important for Dom,” Wylie said, noting that Cummings was aware of both Cambridge Analytica and its principal backer, Robert Mercer, a rightwing US hedge fund billionaire and Donald Trump supporter.

Cummings responded during the hearing by writing in a blogpost that Wylie was a “fantasist-charlatan”. When put to Wylie by a member of the committee, Chris Matheson, Wylie said his evidence had been “fact checked by the Guardian, the Observer, the New York Times, Channel 4 News and the ICO [the Information Commissioner’s Office]”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/27/brexit-groups-had-common-plan-to-avoid-election-spending-laws-says-wylie