[Politics] Cambridge Analytica were involved in a pro Brexit campaign

[beorhthelm]

https://www.fairvote.uk/the-evidence/

Relatively damning, depending on what you want to believe of course.

i do like some dramatic music to punctuate a message. not going to defend actions that may have skirted around rules, but just remember the remain side spent 50% more than leave side, and thats not including a mailshot to every house funded by government (not counted in the official Vote remain campaigns). lets not pretend the result wasnt fair due to this minor budget alteration (about 2%).

also, the leave vote won by a margin of 3.78%, not 2% as claimed in video. dont know why they need make such a gross inaccuracy.
numbers from the Electoral Commission here, scroll down about 3/4.

 

[Buzzer]

The Tories will try and brush it under the carpet and hope it goes away. Boris's lies continue I see

Democracy is under attack not just in the UK, but across the world. We're at the dangerous crossroads

Which Tories? Most of the big hitters in 2015 were firmly Remain including our current Chancellor and current PM. You can certainly point the finger at Boris and Gove for telling porkies on behalf of the Leave campaign but it's not exactly a party political issue when the most hardcore Leave communities are Labour supporting.

Remain didn't lose the referendum because of Cambridge Analytica or the NHS bus or because of Boris. The answer is far more complicated, this Guardian article is an excellent overview and really needs to be read thoroughly by anyone looking for answers. Trouble is, for all their claims of greater sophistication and intelligence, a lot of Remain voters prefer to stick with one or two tabloid arguments or even worse, twist this into a Tory (Leave) v Labour (Remain).

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/05/how-remain-failed-inside-story-doomed-campaign

 

[Brighton Mod]

Was that illegal?
Because alleged illegal spending by Vote Leave is the story here (amongst others). Why are you and others willfully trying to dismiss that?

To provide a balanced perspective on this. Its difficult to get to anywhere near the truth when lying, theiving, deceiptful and unscrupulous Mps, apparatchicks, researchers, journalists and politcal lobbyists become involved. We are further from the truth than all of us know, so trying to make judgements with the limited amount information we have is folly, we're al be played, wake up to it.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

Amusing to see people who can't accept the referendum result talking this up into a huge conspiracy. It's almost as if all the progress made in the Brexit talks has made them suddenly realise we are leaving after all

Meanwhile ..

REMAIN CAMPAIGN USED EXACTLY THE SAME SPENDING TACTICS AS VOTE LEAVE, ONLY FAR WORSE

There is a long list of reasons why Carole Cadwalladr’s claims that Vote Leave “cheated” on their spending during the referendum are wrong. First and foremost, the Remain campaign did exactly the same thing that Cadwalladr is accusing Vote Leave of, only far, far worse. Vote Leave gifted BeLeave £625,000. Yet in the month before the vote the Remainers set up FIVE new campaigns and funnelled a MILLION pounds into them so they could stay under the spending limit:

DDB UK Ltd registered as an independent campaign on 25 May 2016, less than a month before the referendum. DDB UK Ltd received £191,000 in donations.

Best For Our Future registered as a permitted participant on 27 May 2016, less than a month before the referendum. It received £424,000 in donations

The In Crowd registered on 10 June 2016, less than two weeks before the referendum. It received £76,000 in donations.

Virgin Management Ltd registered as a permitted participant on 3 June 2016, less than three weeks before the referendum. It received £210,000 in donations.

Wake Up And Vote registered as a permitted participant on 24 May 2016, less than a month before the referendum. It received £100,000 in donations.

The Remain campaign did exactly the same thing as Vote Leave, only with more money and with five new campaigns. This renders Cadwalladr’s central charge against Vote Leave completely obsolete.

Reason number two why the claims about Vote Leave and BeLeave coordinating are bonkers. The lawyer championing the Cadwalladr claims, Jolyon Maugham, has called the validity of the referendum into question over alleged collusion among the Leave campaigns. Yet the various Remain campaigns coordinated on a much greater scale, holding conference calls every morning to coordinate their messaging, sharing data, suppliers and campaign materials, and coordinating spending. Cadwalladr and Maugham have completely ignored the fact that the Remain campaigns colluded on a much larger scale.
Reason number three, and the most obvious of the lot: how can Vote Leave reasonably be accused of cheating on spending when the Remain campaign spent far, far more and had the entire machinery of Whitehall behind them? Electoral Commission figures show the Remain campaign spent £19 million. The Leave campaign spent £13 million. The government spent £9 million of taxpayers’ money on Remain campaign literature. £3 million of this was spent on online ads and “digital promotion”. How can Vote Leave possibly accused of cheating when the overall spending was so blatantly biased in favour of the Remain campaign?

As the Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman says:

The Remain campaign coordinated their efforts on a conference call every morning. They used taxpayers money to send campaign literature to every household under the guise of information. If it was stacked, it was stacked against Leave. I voted Remain but this is ridiculous

— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) March 24, 2018

The truth is the only people pushing Cadwalladr’s nonsense are ultra-Remainers who cannot fathom that the country wants Brexit, and have to believe that the Leave vote only happened due to some corruption or cheating. The facts simply do not bear this out.

https://order-order.com/2018/03/26/...xactly-spending-tactics-vote-leave-far-worse/

Tick tock ..

 

[Berty23]

When the best defence is "but they did something bad as well" then that normally suggests something untoward doesn't it? Didn't thebremain camp get cleared? It is funny when people say "you have focussed on leave now look at remain" but didn't this start looking at CA and big data lead here?

Struggling to keep up.

 

[JC Footy Genius]

When the best defence is "but they did something bad as well" then that normally suggests something untoward doesn't it? Didn't thebremain camp get cleared? It is funny when people say "you have focussed on leave now look at remain" but didn't this start looking at CA and big data lead here?

Struggling to keep up.

It's ' they did the same thing but on a bigger scale' .. it's your lot who are going around saying it's bad.

Clutching at straws.

 

[Bold Seagull]

The truth is the only people pushing Cadwalladr’s nonsense are ultra-Remainers who cannot fathom that the country wants Brexit, and have to believe that the Leave vote only happened due to some corruption or cheating. The facts simply do not bear this out.[/I]

https://order-order.com/2018/03/26/...xactly-spending-tactics-vote-leave-far-worse/

Tick tock ..

that should read 'cannot fathom 52% of the country want Brexit'...

 

[Bold Seagull]

also, the leave vote won by a margin of 3.78%, not 2% as claimed in video. dont know why they need make such a gross inaccuracy.
numbers from the Electoral Commission here, scroll down about 3/4.

It will likely be in reference to the swing. There was 3.78% difference in the vote, but actually had Remain had 1.9% or more, they would have won.

 

[Driver8]

that should read 'cannot fathom 52% of the country want Brexit'...

52% of the 72% that voted, i.e. 37%.

 

[pb21]

When the best defence is "but they did something bad as well" then that normally suggests something untoward doesn't it? Didn't thebremain camp get cleared? It is funny when people say "you have focussed on leave now look at remain" but didn't this start looking at CA and big data lead here?

Struggling to keep up.

Both sides cheated by overspending and one (possibly both) likely used some form of insidious and underhand campaigning methods ultimately financed by people with otherwise vested interests.

The whole thing was a clearly a farce and the only sensible thing now would be to annul the result.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

that should read 'cannot fathom 52% of the country want Brexit'...

'wantED'

 

[Stat Brother]

I wonder if the powers that be even had a conversation around:-

'what should we do if the vote is close?'

 

[Westdene Seagull]

52% of the 72% that voted, i.e. 37%.

And 48% of the 72% that voted is even less than 37%

 

[hans kraay fan club]

I wonder if the powers that be even had a conversation around:-

'what should we do if the vote is close?'

Well the 'leader' of one side - the lovely Mr Farage - had certainly considered it. You'll recall he made very clear that a marginal result could not be considered definitive, and he would continue to campaign for a second vote.

 

[Buzzer]

I wonder if the powers that be even had a conversation around:-

'what should we do if the vote is close?'

The question was asked and answered.

"LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will not hold a second referendum on its membership of the European Union if the result of a June 23 vote is close, Prime Minister David Cameron said..."

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-b...u-referendum-if-result-is-close-idUKKCN0Y81VK

Farage was more equivocal: "...if the result was as close as 52-48 percent for “In”, the debate would be “unfinished business”

It does kind of legitimise the Remainers constant stalling and disrupting tactics but only if you give the bloke's utterances some credibility. I don't and I suspect most Remainers feel the same.

 

[Stat Brother]

Well the 'leader' of one side - the lovely Mr Farage - had certainly considered it. You'll recall he made very clear that a marginal result could not be considered definitive, and he would continue to campaign for a second vote.

Oh yes.

It's so bizarre that such a decision has been allowed to be made by 1.3m people, of those that voted.
The fact that there wasn't a minimum number required to change the entire political future of the country, says all you need to know about the remain campaign.

 

[Stat Brother]

The question was asked and answered.

"LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will not hold a second referendum on its membership of the European Union if the result of a June 23 vote is close, Prime Minister David Cameron said..."

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-b...u-referendum-if-result-is-close-idUKKCN0Y81VK

Farage was more equivocal: "...if the result was as close as 52-48 percent for “In”, the debate would be “unfinished business”

It does kind of legitimise the Remainers constant stalling and disrupting tactics but only if you give the bloke's utterances some credibility. I don't and I suspect most Remainers feel the same.

What a tool.

I'd almost forgotten just how complacent the entire Remain campaign was, until reading that.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

Oh yes.

It's so bizarre that such a decision has been allowed to be made by 1.3m people, of those that voted.
The fact that there wasn't a minimum number required to change the entire political future of the country, says all you need to know about the remain campaign.

But if it isn't just a straight 'side with the most votes wins' then some people's votes end up being worth more than others. Hardly very fair regardless of what is being voted on.

 

[vegster]

Well the 'leader' of one side - the lovely Mr Farage - had certainly considered it. You'll recall he made very clear that a marginal result could not be considered definitive, and he would continue to campaign for a second vote.

Exactly, he was never going to rest until the cash ran out or he got the result he wanted.

 

[Machiavelli]

The question was asked and answered.

"LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will not hold a second referendum on its membership of the European Union if the result of a June 23 vote is close, Prime Minister David Cameron said..."

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-b...u-referendum-if-result-is-close-idUKKCN0Y81VK

Farage was more equivocal: "...if the result was as close as 52-48 percent for “In”, the debate would be “unfinished business”

It does kind of legitimise the Remainers constant stalling and disrupting tactics but only if you give the bloke's utterances some credibility. I don't and I suspect most Remainers feel the same.

Are Davis, May, the negotiating team, etc also engaging in stalling tactics? They haven't exactly got very far in the 21 months since the vote (let's be fair to them, and say the 18 months since they've been in position); is this the fault of: Remainers; them; the multiple Leave camps for being all things to all (wo)men?