Reds under the bus

The liberal media have been alive with this curious story -- the news is there is no news. Lord, how E Maitlis of Newsnight wished there had been and unsuccessfully put suitable words in the mouth of an interviewee and all. We just have to do what we can :

The Russia report confirms it: the government had reason to suspect a violation of our democratic processes, and ignored it

The conclusion of the Russia report is damning not for what it says, but for what it cannot. Neither the British government nor intelligence agencies made any effort to investigate the alleged hacking of the UK’s most significant democratic event in generations.

We should note that many Russia experts doubt a coordinated interference in the Brexit referendum....Many also note that Russia had both economic and political interests to maintain a strong EU – not least as a bulwark against the US.

Here is a nice bit of argument by residue:

Nevertheless, allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 EU referendum did not emerge from the ether and were not simply the online ramblings of conspiracy theorists.

We can obviously rule out those two feeble sources -- leaving only the one we want to believe in.

There is a chance to revisit the old causes one more time:

The referendum was compromised in a number of ways. Some, such as the allegations of misspending, were about laws. Others, such as the naked falsehoods published by Vote Leave, were about basic fairness. And yet early on, for whatever reason, the UK government decided that Brexit was the will of the people and that was the end of it. 

After all that nudging and winking:

The fundamental point here is not that we would have remained in the EU if it hadn’t been for shady officials in Moscow, or troll farms in St Petersburg. Even if such a smoking gun exists, it will probably never be found. Rather, the government had reason to suspect a violation of our democratic processes and ignored it

Jonathan Lis is deputy director of the thinktank British Influence