I have followed the Cambridge Analytica story with interest. It is of enormous importance, especially with regard to data security. It also matters to the whole Brexit story. Bit there is one question that keeps occurring to me that is seemingly not being asked, and that is when to comes to Brexit 'so what?'
So what if Leave abused the rules, which I think they did: the evidence is overwhelming?
So what if they targeted voters who had not given their consent for their data to be used in this way?
And so, so what if the result does not really reflect a fair election?
All of this matters, but only as a matter of curiosity if nothing is to be done about it. And that then begs the question of what can be done?
Should the result be declared void? There would seem to be good reason to do so.
But if it is does that mean Article 50 should be withdrawn?
Can we withdraw Article 50?
And will our EU partners be kind enough to agree it was all just a mistake and we can go back to where we are?
But what if we do not follow through on this? What is the PM ducks this issue, as I suspect she will? Does this suggest that rigging elections is acceptable because the consequences cannot be undone and some fall guys can be made to carry the insignificant price?
These are not minor issues. They go to the heart of what democracy and the rule of law means. And what seems very apparent is that they do not matter to those who secured a Leave vote. But in that case what are we to make of their aspirations? And what do they say of the country we are heading to be?
I reiterate that the stories about Facebook and data are important and need to be addressed. But in my opinion the existential questions about how the UK has been stolen from those asked to determine its future seem more important still.
I am not saying that many of those who voted Leave would not have done so without this data campaign: I am sure that they would have done. But I also think it entirely reasonable to think that the referendum was tipped by the use of what seems to be illegal funding and data secured inappropriately. In that case it is not just fair, but right and proper to ask 'what next?'
So far politicians are not answering, but the reality is that they will need to. It's either they do or the decline and fall of the UK will continue, unabated.
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The decline and fall of the UK will continue, unabated.
Rigging elections is just fine and dandy, providing you’re the ruling party who benefited from it; and the whole thing will blow over in a year so we can just sit on our hands.
I mean: how are the cattle going to know? Nobody reads the Guardian, it’s full of long words.
The thing about electoral funding fraud, illegal campaign tactics, and outright lies in politics, is that they work; and nobody who matters has any interest in changing that.
What interests me here, is that all the media outlets who aren’t the Guardian are running ‘Russian Sabotage’ stories, or outright support for Facebook, intended to gloss over the truth: when you pay money to FB, you can use the data for anything you damn’ well please, and the worst that Facebook will ever do is ask you to tick a box and say you didn’t.
I find that surprising, because Facebook are one of Old Media’s biggest competitors for advertising money. Why aren’t they all campaigning furiously against it?
A quick look at a typical newspaper’s funding model for their own web-facing business tells you why:
http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/03/23/nothing/
The good news is that this is now illegal under European law, and the enforcement starts in eight weeks’ time.
Across the EU there seems to be much more concern about this
Maybe we are not culturally aligned….
“Across the EU there seems to be much more concern about this
Maybe we are not culturally aligned….”
I think a smiley wouldn’t be out of place there.
I think “not being culturally aligned” has been UK’s problem all along with the EU: we’ve never really got to grips with being part of it and have offered scant interest in anything resembling a leadership role. UK history obviously played a part in this: running an Empire has imbued certain sections of UK society with feeling of “entitlement to rule” and, in an imperial context, that translates to authoritarian rule, which doesn’t sit well with the more consensual approach required by the EU. We see evidence of this daily at Westminster, where the adversarial approach prevails and a minority government seeks to rule by diktat.
We also see “not being culturally aligned” at play internally within the UK, where the needs of the devolved nations are frequently ignored by the ruling party at Westminster. If these needs can’t be dismissed by logic, then they’re easily swept aside by numerical superiority “in the interests of the UK as a whole”, which frequently translates as “the interests of the chosen few and sod the rest of you.” Indeed the same can be said of many regions of England which suffer the same inequalities and regular disappointments.
Being “culturally aligned” undoubtedly helps international understanding and co-operation, at personal, corporate and governmental levels and I contend that it helps improve one’s understanding of one’s own country. I only began to really understand how the UK and my native Scotland were run when I went abroad to work and live. The comparisons with other countries, peoples, cultures and regimes were hugely illuminating in both positive and negative ways, but the legacy I got from it was a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the UK.
Nile says:
“Rigging elections is just fine and dandy, providing you’re the ruling party ….”
It’s the American way and that’s the direction Brexit inexorably shifts us. The Clinton faction are sore losers because it cost them a great deal of money to campaign. Promises will have been made to donors which were only deliverable once in power.
In the American model of ‘democracy’ votes are bought – one way or another. Persuasive techniques are expensive; someone has to pay. The first hurdle any US presidential candidate has to cross is the question of ‘can I attract enough campaign funds’.
It’s not that bad here (yet), but the Cambridge Analytica story… (there’s media-speak for you: it’s only a story, not a lethal swipe at democratic process)…. is indicative of the extent to which party funding can buy results.
Grass roots political activists and enthusiasts struggle to compete in this arena. The upside of this is that to challenge the major powers there has to be a mass support of small-change donors. The movement that can garner that level of financial support will have wide public support in government if it can get there.
Democracy is expensive, but in real terms not so expensive as the alternatives.
The penalties for abusing election rules always seem to be absolutely pathetic. No wonder everyone is happy to ignore the rules. Surely proven cases should carry a custodial sentence as atleast an option?
Mike McAtominey says:
“The penalties for abusing election rules always seem to be absolutely pathetic. No wonder everyone is happy to ignore the rules. Surely proven cases should carry a custodial sentence as at least an option?”
Turkeys should vote for Christmas ? Aye Right.
I have seen my healthy scepticism degenerate to general cynicism. The ‘professional’ politicians with their nice new shiny PPE degrees led the charge to obfuscate the difference between truth, a stated fact taken in isolation, and honesty, sometimes contrary facts set in context. They were eagerly followed by banks who did not defraud but missold. Since then a cavalcade of shady operations and practises have become commonplace.
The terms & conditions scandal regularly employed by tech firms is designed to give legal protection from any claim of sharp practise. Pages of T&Cs written in deliberately obscure legalese, presented in small text often presented in grey type hide one sided, open ended contracts with provision for the company to change the terms at will. Such arrangements are held by barracuda lawyers to prove consent. Is it informed consent? Is it legitimate consent when applied to an elderly person with cataracts (a problem affecting 30 – 40% of over 50s) ? Is it fair when applied to someone with a vocabulary limited to colloquial speech?
There was a time when we could have said “It ain’t cricket” but isn’t it ironic that the events of this week show that it is? Cynicism whilst necessary is corrosive and until the politicians unhitch their political bandwagon from paid for influence it will grow.
Bill Lawrence says:
“I have seen my healthy scepticism degenerate to general cynicism…..
…. Cynicism whilst necessary is corrosive and until the politicians unhitch their political bandwagon from paid for influence it will grow.”
Caitlin Moran says of cynicism ;
‘Cynicism is like a suit of armour which protects you from the knocks, but you can’t grow in a suit of armour and you can’t dance’
I guess that’s why I’m not six foot four and have two left feet.
Politicians won’t ‘unhitch’. They will need to be actively detached from their bandwagons. We need to start this process before the balance has shifted so far that only extreme violence will do it.
Centralisation has taken political decision-making further and further away from the people affected by those decisions. The reversal of the trend has to start from Parish councils, Town councils. There’s no way to get a lever in to the top of the game.
The whole referendum campaign, and everything since, has been tainted by mendacity and deliberate attempts to mislead. Unfortunately, this now seems to be the norm. It’s OK to lie. Fact, integrity, and the common good are no longer all that important in the scheme of things. At the forefront, we have a greedy, power grabbing government riding a coach and four through Parliamentary supremacy, to deliver a Brexit which is altogether contrary to our best interests. Standards in public life are nowhere near where they should be.
What’s the best that can happen as a result of the Cambridge Analytical scandal? Perhaps a fine, and the resignation of a couple of Cabinet ministers. But even that’s unlikely. There’s no way that the referendum will be declared void, or re-run. If we’re lucky, the government will be kicked out (best option) or eventually come to understand that the Irish border problem cannot be resolved outside the single market. The “smart” solution may be OK for customs, but it will not work for live animals and products of animal origin, or for plant and vegetable products. That being so, the UK may evenutally reject the free trade option, and elect for the EEA. It will all take considerable time, angst, insult and protest from the swivel eyed brigade, and a verbal civil war. But there is a chance of a sensible resolution, albeit the lunatics will do all they can to prevent it. I look forward to a debate in Parliament and a focus on what is, and is not, in the national interest.
I hope it is only a verbal civil war
The Supreme Court has said it wasn’t a referendum. Effectively a giant survey.
Everything binding to date has been done alone by Parliament, which voted 81-19% to authorise the PM to trigger the A50 notice.
Any revocation of Brexit needs to be done by Parliament.
Neither May or Corbyn seems to want another vote in Parliament on this – regardless of the Cambridge Analytics story.
James E says:
“The Supreme Court has said it wasn’t a referendum. Effectively a giant survey….”
‘Omage to Catalonia ?
The DUP of course are heavily involved, some very shady money and links with AggregateIQ. The Tories shamelessly voted to keep these monies secret.
Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of Vote Leave, who says: “Without a doubt, the Vote Leave campaign owes a great deal of its success to the work of AggregateIQ. We couldn’t have done it without them”.
I had a chat with Mike Galsworthy yesterday (he wad in Newcastle at a stop Brexit event) who was heavily involved in the Remain campaign and sad they were paranoid about keeping to the rules and were determined the Remain campaign was financially squeaky clean and impeccable.
To me it feels that our democracy has been hijacked, but I suspect the Tories will do their utmost to ignore any wrongdoing on the Leave side.
It seems sometime that the UK fell into some nightmarish alternative reality on the 23 June 2016; I suspect there is a lot more to play out.
I suspect you are right
Brussels really has created a monster.
What might that monster be called? Given that this is about subjugating democracy to corporate interests the only word for it is fascism.
if one person in fifty was influenced (2%) the majority for leaving disappears. If it was one in twenty five had voted the other way, there would be a very small majority for staying. the final result was 51.8% I think.
And if 1 in 50 hadn’t been persuaded by the threat of a deep and immediate recession, what would have happened to the Remain vote?
All interesting ‘what if’s’.
And as my mate Roy used to say about ‘what if’: ‘if your grandpa had wheels he’d be a bus’
Chris says:
“All interesting ‘what if’s’.
And as my mate Roy used to say about ‘what if’: ‘if your grandpa had wheels he’d be a bus’ ”
A lady of my acquaintance who would be very old by now had she not died at a considerable age a good while back was wont to say:
If ‘ifs’ and ‘ans’ were pots and pans there’d be no work for tinker-mans.
Gives a whole new meaning to the mantra “taking back control”. Clearly not the electorate.
Allow me very briefly to explore your “So what?” challenge. The referendum was decided 52/48. This is too close for a major constitutional change in a democracy, and should never have been attempted under these conditions. It would not have been possible in the US: and here I look not to current politics, but back to the wisdom of Madison, who realised that narrow majorities on major consitutional issues did not serve democracy, but undermined it; it merely created division and inflamed dangerous prejudices.
52/48 is also important from the perspective of ‘psyops’ because relatively small numbers may be crucial in deciding the result; and these can more easily be targeted and influenced. In Scotland the Remain majority was 62/38, and indeed the rebuttal “so what” would apply, simply because it is implausible to suppose the influence of opinion manipulative activities affected the result – unless to say that without it, the result in favour of Remain should and would have been even greater! Ah, irony.
What a mess and what a whole lot of circular reasoning continues in the Brexit Discourse.
My Question is this? Is a federal Europe a good idea?
Karl Bildt argues for more Europe but less Brussels that is more subsidiarity.
Political Economy requires an overhaul both in the Uk and in the EU. The ECB and the EURO is probably democracies greatest threat in the Euro Zone, not Cambridge Analytica. State collection of data and marginalisation of dissenters is a default setting for the security state the digital age allows the State to do much more than it was technologically able to previously that this has been a state invented industry ripened and hived off for privatisation for Private sector Cronies should surprise no one.
May I ask you a question, Richard. Do you think the UK should Keep the Pound Stirling?
I live in Sweden and there seems very little chance of Sweden giving up the Kroner anytime soon, the Finnish experience has hardened Swedish views on this I think. Would the EU work better if Germany returned to the Deutch Mark indeed would Greece be in such a mess if it had maintained the Drachma?
A witty guy Called Derrick Wall once tweeted this. *Brexit an imaginary solution to real problems*
http://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2016/09/democracy-unfolded-emergent-reality-of.html
https://letthemconfectsweeterlies.blogspot.se/2017/03/brexit-is-still-not-being-seen-for-what.html
The EU has a huge democratic deficit The turnout in the June General election last year dumfounded the media which worked hard to secure a low turnout I suspect that is the aim with the current media narrative ahead of the May Local Elections.
Another Question. Which problems does one hope to solve and for whom by staying In or leaving the EU? From the EU perspective, which problems does the EU think it will solve by the EU remaining in the EU or what are the problems for the EU following a loss of UK membership?
Some topics for consideration.
1. Inequality, poverty and homelessness
2. Pension Provision/ Aging Population
3. MultiCulturalism v Immigration v refugees v enlargement/encroachment Russian Federation Sphere of Influence
4. Brics/ Washington Consensus Dichotomy.
5. Energy Cliff in EROEI Terms Oil/Gas/Coal/Nuclear/Hydro/WInd/Solar etc.
6. Debt Based or Energy/Carbon-Based Currency intra European/ International Trade?
If one were to prepare a report card and grade any set of Political or Business elites under the above headings regardless of affiliation no one gets a pass. The political obsession with confusing Symptoms for causes characterises the Debate on Brexit its much wider than Brexit
to repat Dereck again
Brexit Imaginary Solution to real problems!
I am sorry I do not have time to engage more with your comment
Re sterling: yes, emphatically so. Every country should have its own currency
The right to tax makes no sense without your own currency
“Should the result be declared void? There would seem to be good reason to do so.”
This question was already hovering around when Carol Cawalladr’s first article on the subject was published and it just gets firmer as additional revelations appear.
At this stage a void declaration seems like a bit of a stretch. It would need something more definitive. Something more than the fact that dodgy practices and dealings were involved, It would need something that clearly shows that these practices worked.
Marco Fante says:
“At this stage a void declaration seems like a bit of a stretch…..”
Ahrghhh.!! We’d have to have another one.
I think we’re better on the current path. The one that says, ‘Brexit means ….as you were chaps’ ! (Except it would cost us Maggie’s handbag rebate.)
Cheaper in the long run though.