Another day, another ‘leak’ …

The old year is definitely petering out. So far we’ve been spared the obligatory ‘looking back in anger’ articles – they’ll come tomorrow, and yep: we’ll have one as well! It is a good time to look at a few items which at first glance don’t seem to have much to do with Brexit but I’m sure you will be able to connect the dots! There was, for example, this little bit of news:

“Tony Blair was bidding for contracts with the European Union for his “institute for global change” as he publicly campaigned to overturn Brexit, The Telegraph can disclose. Documents obtained by this newspaper show that the former prime ­minister held talks with officials about striking a funding agreement between the European Commission and the not-for-profit Tony Blair Institute (TBI). […] On Saturday a TBI spokesman insisted that the institute was “perfectly entitled to seek EU funding for work relevant to EU funding streams”, adding: “As a matter of fact we have not yet ­submitted a formal application so no funding has been received.” (paywalled link)

One doesn’t need to be particularly malicious to see a connection: “I’ll do everything to stop Brexit and meanwhile it would be nice if you gave me some money – for something slightly different.” Given that so many other Arch Remainers, led my Michael Heseltine, are in receipt of huge sums of EU money this should not come as a shock.

I’ll just say that the Blairs and Heseltines, the BBC and others seem to have still not grasped that this money is not created by the benevolent EU, it comes out of our pockets – and not just ours, the poorer EU member states also have to pay into that EU pot: our stinking rich Remainers are happy to remain stinking rich by taking money from the poor, here and in the EU. Let that sink in.

Then there’s this outrageous report in the DM: 

“Scotland Yard’s ‘online hate crime hub’ has logged 1,851 incidents since its launch in April 2017 – but just 17 cases, or 0.92 per cent, resulted in charges. Only seven have led to prosecutions, Freedom of Information figures show, with three more cases pending a charging decision from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Those prosecuted include trolls found guilty of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic abuse online. The £1.7million scheme, launched by London mayor Sadiq Khan, has yielded just 59 other positive results, including youth referrals, harassment warnings and apologies.” (link)

We remember, do we not, how suddenly, right after the EU Referendum, ‘hate crime’ became an obsession with the Establishment. I’m tempted to file this under ‘projection’ and ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’: the losers, the Remainers, hate us so much that they assume we Leavers, we bigots, racists, xenophobics etc – must be overflowing with hate just as they are. Thus the hate crime legislation, which surely would bring proof and provide another reason for abandoning Brexit. And this is the result? The only ‘hate’ I find in me is for those who yet again have wasted money – our money! – on something demanded by the Remain establishment.

Then there’s the data scandal, about the leaked Honour’s List data. The title in the DM says it all: “Fears leaked New Year’s Honours addresses have already been sold on the dark web – as ex-Civil Service leader slams ‘serious and extraordinary’ data breach” (link). Oh dear oh dear! The more sedate Times writes:

“Whitehall was under growing pressure to explain how the private addresses of more than 1,000 new year honours recipients including celebrities, politicians, diplomats and senior police officers were published online. […] The government apologised to those affected and said it was looking into what had happened after the home and work addresses of 1,097 people were published late on Friday and removed after about an hour.” (link, paywalled)

We remember that last year – for today and tomorrow that’s still 2018 – we were in the grip of complying with the EU’s online data protection legislation. It’s called GDPR and even here at INDEPENDENCE Daily we spent hours and hours and more hours to comply – a big thank-you here to our wonderful IT man and webmaster Chas!

We soon found out that we, the small fry, had worked flat out to stay legal on the dot of May 31st while big corporations dragged their feet. Some said that they would of course prosecute the small fry while the Big’Uns would be allowed leeway. And here we are, practically 18 months later and Whitehall – a pretty big player, you will agree! – has done it!

Perhaps someone in Whitehall thought it was now irrelevant because we’ll be out of the EU and their Laws would not apply – what’s a month or even a year between ‘friends’ – but unfortunately, Ms May has made this EU Law into UK Law, Brexit or not. Did she think that we’d not get Brexit if she could help it and thus it was less disruptive to have such EU Laws well established? 

At least this clear breach of GDPR regulations provided an opportunity for some forgotten VIP to remind us that he’s still here:

“The former head of the civil service has called for an “urgent investigation” […] Lord Kerslake said it was a “serious and indeed extraordinary breach”. ”There is a “well-established process that has gone on in pretty much the same way for years, so I think an urgent investigation is certainly needed,” he told BBC Breakfast. Acknowledging it was “likely to be a human error”, he questioned whether staff were sufficiently well trained in information security and whether they had been “briefed on the potential consequences if this information was released?” (link, paywalled)

Interesting, isn’t it, how Lord Kerslake already tries to protect his former sheep, the civil servants: ‘human error’ and ‘not enough training’ … I simply ask: how is that even possible? Wasn’t there sufficient time? What do they do all day? Talk about how to prevent ‘hate crime’ and how best to stay in the EU? When I read that:

“The Information Commissioner’s Office, the data watchdog, which has the power to fine organisations hundreds of millions of pounds for data breaches, is urgently investigating the scandal.” (link, paywalled)

I wonder if whoever did this will really get fined, or if Whitehall will just get their knuckles rapped, unlike us private muggins. I couldn’t agree more with Ms Silkie Carlo, director of ‘Big Brother watch, who said:

“It’s extremely worrying to see that the government doesn’t have a basic grip on data protection […]. It’s a farcical and inexcusable mistake, especially given the new Data Protection Act passed by the government last year – it clearly can’t stick by its rules.” (link, paywalled)

Indeed – but that’s the way it has been all along: ‘you must do as we tell you – we don’t have to’. They don’t need to explain that their oh-so-selfless work to keep us In the EU is due simply to the huge amounts of money they’re receiving from the EU troughs.  Instead they reviled us Leavers ever since the 24th of June 2016 as racist bigots, too thick and uneducated to know what’s good for us, namely paying huge sums of money so that they, the EU grandees, could keep the cushy lifestyles they’ve become accustomed to. 

On that background of institutional incompetence and money-wasting it’s practically irrelevant that Johnson will copy May’s “EU Negotiating Team”, albeit this time without that Oily Robbins, now a ‘Sir’ and working at Goldman Sachs. Plus ça change, as Macron would say:

“Boris Johnson will run a new Brexit unit from the heart of government as he takes charge of the UK’s next phase of negotiations with the European Union, it was reported yesterday. The prime minister will rebrand the government’s Brexit team as “Taskforce Europe” after the UK leaves the EU at the end of next month. It will be based in 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office and will have personal oversight from Mr Johnson. The unit will be led by David Frost, Mr Johnson’s Europe adviser, who took charge of the final withdrawal negotiations when Mr Johnson entered Downing Street in July.” (link, paywalled)

These would be civil servants such as those who’ve ‘not been briefed’ properly to prevent that data leak … I wonder how much more of civil service incompetence will come to light, and how much damage this has already done to our Brexit negotiations. 

I leave you with this quote from Professor David Starkey:

“Remainers have somehow got the notion that we get our rights and liberties from Europe. This is preposterous. This is absurd. This is ridiculous. Europe is a rather poor parody of what England has been for the last 800 years. Do we all realise that the European Declaration of Human Rights is drafted by Winston Churchill’s attorney general? But it was intended not as a piece of legislation. It was intended as an aspiration for the newly-liberated countries that had been under the heel of Germany.” The catastrophe, the historian added, was to turn the wording of that into a legislation which applies to individual cases.” (link)

Remember who it was that turned this into legislation? That same Mr Blair who believes it’s ok to get money from the EU for his projects because of his Remain activities.

It’s well past time for us Leavers to take over the public discourse. We don’t need to defend ourselves for having had the temerity to vote Leave. It’s for Remain to defend themselves now that their corruption is becoming plain.

KBO!