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Brexit groups had 'common plan' to avoid election spending laws, says Wylie EU referendum won through fraud, whistleblower tells MPs
(about 3 hours later)
There was a “common plan” to use the network of companies orbiting Cambridge Analytica to get around election spending and co-ordination laws, Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower, has told a parliamentary committee. 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.
“For me, this is about the integrity of the democratic process, which is more important than anything else,” Wylie said, before emphasising his words: “I am absolutely convinced that there was a common plan and common purpose with Vote Leave, [pro-Brexit youth group] BeLeave, the DUP and Veterans for Britain.” 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”.
All four groups had employed the services of Aggregate IQ (AIQ), a Canadian company that Wylie said was “set up and worked within the auspices of Cambridge Analytica [and] inherited the company culture of total disregard for the law”. But at the point they employed the services of AIQ, he said, it had effectively no public presence. “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.”
“All of these companies somehow, for some reason, all decided to use Aggregate IQ as their primary service provider, when Aggregate IQ did not have any public presence, no media, no website. The only way that you could find them on the internet is if you went to [Cambridge Analytica minority owner] SCL’s website and called up SCL Canada. So, first question that I have is why. 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,” he told the MPs. 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.”
“When you look at the cumulation 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, 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.
Following the publication of a Buzzfeed article in 2016, shining light on the work done by BeLeave, Wylie said he went to Aggregate IQ because “I was concerned that something unlawful happened. I mean, it doesn’t pass the smell test.” 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.
“I went and actually spoke with Aggregate, who were very, very pleased with themselves with how that project went – understandably, they won – and said, can you show me what it was you were doing, how can you untease it, what did you do,” Wylie said. “They conceded to me – and this is a verbatim quote, and I stand by it, I remember Jeff Sylvester [the chief operating officer of Aggregate IQ] telling me this: it was, quote, ‘totally illegal’. 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”.
“AggregateIQ was just used as a proxy money-laundering vehicle,” Wylie told the hearing. “What [Vote Leave mastermind] Dom Cummings did is he just went round and found places he could launder money through to give it to AIQ so they could overspend. And that is my genuinely held belief. “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.
“For me 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. You cannot call yourself a leaver, you cannot call yourself someone who believes in British law, and win by breaking British law in order to achieve that goal.” “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.”
Silvester told Canadian publication Times Colonist on Sunday: “AggregateIQ works in full compliance within all legal and regulatory requirements in all jurisdictions where it operates. It has never knowingly been involved in any illegal activity. All work AggregateIQ does for each client is kept separate from every other client.” 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.
Wylie also alleged that Aggregate IQ’s work in other countries paint a picture of a company not fit to work on British elections. Elaborating on claims first reported in the Guardian last week, he said that Aggregate IQ worked on projects involving disseminating material hacked from the current president of Nigeria during a campaign in 2015, and distributed extremely violent video content aimed at influencing the vote in that nation’s elections. 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.
“I could talk more about some of the other projects that AIQ has worked on,” Wylie said. “So, for example, Nigeria, the Nigerian project in 2015, that Carole [Cadwalladr] at the Guardian has touched on in her reporting, where the company utilised the services of an Israeli private intelligence firm. That firm is Black Cube, that’s not been reported, although Channel 4 has undercover footage that they haven’t been able to put into the public domain of Alexander Nix talking about the relationship with Black Cube. 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.
Black Cube on the Nigeria project was engaged to hack the now-president of Nigeria, [Muhammadu] Buhari, to get access to his medical records and private emails. AIQ worked on that project. So Aggregate IQ was handed material in Nigeria from Cambridge Analytica to distribute online. So that’s distribution of kompromat and that’s also distribution of incredibly threatening and violent video content, which I’ve also passed on to the committee. “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.”
The videos, which AIQ distributed in Nigeria with the sole intent of intimidating voters, included content where people were being dismembered, where people were having their throats cut and bled to death in a ditch, they were being burned alive. There is incredibly anti-Islamic and threatening messages portraying Muslims as violent. Trickett said that, if necessary, the police should also investigate the allegations.
“So you’ve got Aggregate IQ, which received 40% of Vote Leaves funding, also working on projects that involved hacked material and kompromat and distributing violent videos of people being bled to death, and this is the company that played an incredibly pivotal role in politics here.” 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.
In a statement issued after the hearing, Black Cube said it has always operated within the law. 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.”
‘Whilst we are flattered that we are seemingly being connected with every international incident that occurs, we will state that Chris Wylie’s testimony is a flagrant lie,” it said. 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.
“We categorically declare that neither Black Cube, nor any of its affiliates and subsidiaries, have ever worked for, or engaged with, SCL, Cambridge Analytica, or any of their affiliates and subsidiaries. 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.
“Black Cube has never operated in Nigeria nor has it worked on any project connected to Nigeria, and none of its employees have ever set foot in Nigeria.” “Data was really important for Dom,” Wylie said, nothing 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]”.
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