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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

You miss the forest for thr trees Gentlemen.

The article is about the fact that UK intelligence and government both know that Russia interfered in referendum on the side of Brexit. Obvious leave won, and if they were to find any concrete evidence of this interference, it would damage credebility of UK Leave even further, on top of existing breaches of electoral law and populism / trumpism.

"There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and this goes back to nobody wanting to touch the issue with a 10-foot pole" This is hilarious.

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Not only would it undermine credibility of UK Leave, but elements of the Conservative party.

The is the same report which the Conservative government took almost 18 months to publish after it was finished [1] (and which the government did what they could to avoid starting). This includes the period during which a Conservative government won a general election on the platform of the very issue which prompted the report in the first place - the Brexit referendum.

And when was it finally released? The day before parliament's summer recess - to minimise accountability and discussion. By the time parliament sits again it will be just 4 months out from a no deal Brexit, meaning that it has only been available for discussion for 8 weeks out of the 4 and a half years that it has had relevance (since the referendum).

And the same report which is due to be scrutinized by a non-partisan Intelligence and Security Committee. The same committee that the prime minster has installed his preferred puppet to chair (who incidentally has no experience in intelligence or security) [2], booting a senior minister who opposed the move out of the party in the process.

The same committee which was once led by a former senior Conservative MP, now independent, who has expressed his anger over there being "no valid reason" to not publish it sooner [3].

This is more than just a bit of spin covering up some incompetence - it's democratic integrity being brushed aside.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53480682 [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53422010 [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-53488971/grieve-on...

The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum. MPs, largely Labour ones, who refused to accept the Brexit result were chucked out by their electorate.

Unless you intend to argue that the Russians also swayed that too.

They certainly stoked the fireplace that is brexit and kept winding people up about it

Are you saying the electorate are somehow unable to cope with an idea being mentioned online? Ridiculous.

Of course they did. They stoke issues that already exist, they're not invented. Just like how the Russians have been stoking race-issues in the US for decades.

Are Antifa and BLM Russian plots to destabilise the US? They certainly have that signature [0], that doesn't mean they aren't valid movements.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q

By their electorate. The Tories won a majority of seats on considerably less than a majority of the vote; the election wasn't an endorsement of Brexit any more than Trump's win off a collapse of the Democratic vote in the rustbelt was an endorsement of sexism and xenophobia.

But UKIP split the vote. From memory, the combination of UKIP and Conservative total votes was > 50%.

The Conservatives got 43.6% and UKIP got 0.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_el...

NB You perhaps meant the Brexit party, who got 2%, rather than UKIP

I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections - i.e the election to get the referendum and the election following the referendum.

In the 2017 General Election the Conservatives got 42.3% of vote and UKIP 1.8%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_el...

Note sure how a Yes/No referendum can have a split vote?

a) I meant 2017 - the post referendum election as I wrote b) I said from memory - my memory was obviously wrong. Please forgive me oh great one.

> the combination of UKIP and Conservative total votes was > 50%

This is a false statement. Even if you include the larger Brexit party as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_el...

I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections - i.e the election to get the referendum and the election following the referendum.

> I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections

But your claim isn't true for 2015 either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Kingdom_general_el...

36.8 + 12.6 = 49.4%

And there wasn't any election in 2016. Do you mean the referendum? You cannot 'split the vote' in a yes/no referendum, can you?

Your claim is also not true for 2017, before you try that one as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_el...

42.3 + 1.8 = 44.1%

sorry 2017, a typo - I will chastise immediately

And it's by far and away the largest grouping in parliament. The UK's regional politics make it something that isn't going to be binary.

I'm not "trying" anything. I'm just sick of the bs around Ruskies telling people to Brexit.

I did say "from memory".

Anyway - I voted remain. I just can't stand the Ruskies thing and the constant revisiting of the referendum result with different angles of "but it's not valid" used each time.

In the 2015 election the Tories got 36.8% and the Faragists 12.6%, summing to 49.4%; the Tories were at that point more or less neutral on Europe so by no means representing a Brexit constituency.

In 2017 the Tories took 42.3% and the Nuttalls 1.8%, totalling 44.1%. Of course, even at that point the Tories still accommodated some Remain views.

In 2019 with Remainers and the insufficiently fervent purged for the most part, the Tories took 43.6%, Farage 2% and the rump UKIP 0.1% to total 45.7%.

I suppose you could add in the Prods, but that still won't get you to 50%.

I was wrong and I did say "from memory". I should have taken the 30 seconds to look.

My fault.

I think the allegation is that Russia manipulated social media, etc.

Influence does not need to be direct, such as stuffing ballots, to be able to change the outcome.

I think the real lesson of the last 10 years is that the electorate in any democracy needs to be smart, which is... a tall order.

Russia definitely tried to interfere in the 2019 election - the trouble is that they seemed to do so in the wrong direction, trying to help out the anti-Brexit side: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53433523 (People spotted this quite a while ago but the government hasn't commented on it previously.)

It's not clear that Labour were on "the anti-Brexit side":

"If the Labour Party win the General Election they want to renegotiate Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and put it to another public vote alongside the option of Remain."[0]

Perhaps if you think that the public would have voted to Remain, then that's an anti-Brexit policy, but perhaps Putin just liked the idea of the chaos that such a referendum would bring (and possibly the supposed benefit of having Corbyn as PM).

[0] https://home.bt.com/news/latest-news/what-is-labours-brexit-...

Fact check: The first election after the referendum was fought on the basis of executing Brexit and the Conservatives lost their majority.

Yes, you're right. I got my election timeline wrong.

The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum.

If Labour had competent leadership then you could argue that, as it was they were run by somebody completely out of his depth (and who wanted Brexit).

So UK voted leave because of Russian interference. US got Trump because of Russian interference.

In other words, stuff that happens we don't accept can't possibly be because we are out of touch with public sentiment?

When something happens we agree with, Russian interference must have stopped then?

That’s kind of the point, Russia has weaponised public sentiment through manipulation and misinformation.

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