Swiftly blasting into the media headlines an attack on Russia perfectly timed for the propaganda spinners desperate to negate the looming exposure of the long-buried Russian Report. This is pre-emptive damage control specifically designed to redirect the focus of public outrage away from the corruption and lies of the guilty Tory Government and spread the smear around as if the intended beneficiary was their favourite enemy Jeremy Corbyn. We fully expect the Russian Report to expose the slush fund flowing directly from Russian oligarchs into the coffers of the Tory Party with all the corrupt implications that would have with regard to the illegal funding of the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, but would it be enough to challenge the legitimacy of the result? What if this highly controversial report exposes Russian manipulation of the Brexit Referendum? Considering millions of EU citizens would be illegally stripped of their rights, would we have a case to bring before the EU court to secure a reprieve from the crash-out Brexit disaster?
The Tories pulled out all the stops to engineer that fake ‘landslide victory’ and get it done in time to beat the EU exit deadline; they probably think if it’s done it’s done and even if they come undone there is no turning back on Brexit and they will still try to cling onto power. Does this delightful dossier have the inside scoop on Dominic Cummings that could extricate him from his powerful post as the PM’s puppeteer? As I have said before, Cummings spent three years living in Moscow and probably speaks Russian, but what contacts and connections could he have maintained and whose bidding was he doing by striking the Brexit blow to help weaken the EU? Our media is rigorously Tory controlled, however, worrying revelations are voiced a lot more freely overseas; in November the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “Australia, the US and the rest of the Five Eyes countries should be ‘extremely concerned’ about Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief of staff accessing its top-secret intelligence, a British MP has warned.”
The Sydney Morning Herald Article reveals that, “Dominic Cummings’ security clearance has come under scrutiny in the British press, following reports he had been ‘developed vetted’, or given the highest security status, enabling him access to the highest levels of intelligence.” That would be the same British intelligence that Cummings wanted to keep a very tight rein on through his compliant stooge Chris Grayling with his appointment to Chair the Intelligence and Security Committee, a move that thankfully was thwarted by the caution of wiser members of the committee who just wanted the best qualified person as Chair. Revealing a highly irregular move, the article said that, “…it was also reported that officials have been withholding classified material from Cummings because of the time he spent in Russia during his 20s, when he is alleged to have cultivated relationships with prominent backers of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Downing Street said it did not comment on the security clearance of individuals.”
The article says that, “Speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, MP Ben Bradshaw said the reports were concerning for allies in Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing network that comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.” Adding the quote from Bradshaw, “If I we’re one of the UK’s Five Eyes allies I would be extremely concerned about this unprecedented arrangement.” They commented, “Boris Johnson’s chief of staff, whose account of his time in Russia is apparently full of gaps and inaccuracies, is granted inexplicably the highest level of security clearance yet is not given full access to secret intelligence. For our Five Eyes system to retain our partners’ confidence it has to be based on completely consistent and fail-safe rules for vetting and information sharing. That would not seem to be happening under the Johnson premiership.” They tell Australian readers that Cummings headed Vote Leave and “was the strategic mastermind of the pro-Brexit campaign.”
It is sad when foreign media appear to show more concern over the demise of British democracy than the sensationalist rags that pump propaganda out to the UK public. However they say, “The Sunday Times reported that a whistleblower had approached senior Labour politicians ‘to raise questions about the ‘relationships’ that Johnson’s chief of staff may have developed with people involved in ‘politics, intelligence and security’ when he worked in Russia between 1994 and 1997’.” Referring to the withheld Russian Report they add, “Labour’s foreign spokeswoman Emily Thornberry accused the government of withholding the report’s publication because of the questions it would raise about Cumming’s time in Russia.” Quoting Thornberry, “Questions about the Prime Minister’s chief aide Dominic Cummings, his relationship with the Oxford academic Norman Stone and the mysterious three years he spent in post-Communist Russia aged just 23.”
Highlighting points raised by Thornberry in the Commons focusing on concerns over, “…the relationships he allegedly forged with individuals like Vladislav Surkov, the key figure behind Vladimir Putin’s throne,” Sydney Morning Herald go on to describe Surkov as a, “personal advisor to Putin, is widely regarded as the creator of post-truth politics where facts are relative. He recently said that Putinist system of government would be the ‘ideology of the future’ and said that Russia was ‘playing with the West’s minds.’ He is more recently seen as the point-man for Russia’s operations in eastern Ukraine.” Quoting directly they document a Commons grilling, “What have you got to hide?” They say, “Thornberry asked of junior Minister of State Christopher Pincher who was sent into Parliament to respond to MPs questions. Pincher dismissed her concerns as ‘paranoid fantasies’ and said the report would be delivered ‘in good time’ but with the government now in Purdah, it will not be released before the election is held on December 12.”
The Covert 2019 Rigged Election came and went with our tabloids insulting ‘Commie Corbyn,’ but a full six months further on we are still awaiting a chance to read that potentially damning report. In another Sydney Morning Herald Article they say, “The British government has dismissed allegations of links to Russia as “smears and conspiracy theories” after it was accused of suppressing a national security report on Russian influence in the UK. Rebel and opposition MPs alleged Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his chief aide had links to Russian intelligence, and that Russians have contributed to the 2016 Brexit campaign and Conservative Party finances. At the moment, the only official information released about the report is its title ‘Russia’, the fact it is 50 pages long and a statement in late 2017 that it would concern ‘Russian activity against the UK’. Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said the failure to release the report was “utterly unjustifiable, unprecedented and clearly politically motivated’.”
Thornberry’s bold attack in the Commons delivered barely a blip on the media radar here as our press fawned over Boris Johnson and his corrupt Tory Government and thoroughly failed to provide the scrutiny delivered by intense pressure that instead targeted discrediting the Labour Party. She is quoted ranting in Parliament, “This is nothing less than an attempt to suppress the truth from the public and from Parliament, and it is an affront to our democracy. There are questions about the relationship between the FSB [Russian intelligence]-linked Sergey Nalobin and his ‘good friend’, the current Prime Minister.” Right to the heart of Government it threatened Tory legitimacy, but few noticed in the UK when Thornberry said, “There are questions about the amount of money flowing into Conservative coffers from Russian émigrés, about the sources of money that paid for the Brexit campaign, and about the dubious activities of Conservative Friends of Russia.”
The article reported, “Conservative David Davis said withholding the report was creating “a vacuum for paranoid fantasies,” but also focused on the more relevant concerns of Dominic Grieve describing him as the “former Conservative attorney-general but now an independent MP after rebelling over Brexit,” saying that, “Number 10 had taken ‘unprecedented’ action by making sure the report did not see the light of day ahead of the December election.” They said, “Grieve, who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, warned the Prime Minister ‘does not have carte blanche to alter our reports or remove material from them’. He called Number 10’s explanation for the delay ‘plainly bogus’. The ISC had completed its report in March then worked with security agencies and the Cabinet Office on a ‘process of correction and redaction’. That process was finished in early October.”
The article reports on how Grieve further elaborated on the process and its normal timetable, saying, “when the agencies and the national security secretariat indicated that they were happy that the published form would not damage any operational capabilities of the agencies’, Grieve said. The report was sent to the Prime Minister for final confirmation on October 17 under a ‘long-standing agreement’ that he would respond within 10 days. ‘It is unprecedented that we should have had no response at all explaining why any further delay is required in this case,’ Grieve told Parliament. Minister of State for Europe Christopher Pincher said the report had not been with the government for an unusual length of time. “The impact of releasing sensitive information must be carefully considered by the Prime Minister on the advice of civil servants. We cannot rush the process and risk undermining our national security.” He said there was “no evidence of any successful Russian involvement in the British electoral cycle.” We will now see!
Here comes the moggy!!! I knew that the second there was even the slightest hint of getting this document released there would be a typical Tory ‘Dead Cat’ and this Skwawkbox Article captures the hypocrisy best here, “Video: Tories receive millions from Russians and hide Russian interference report – so MSM doorsteps JEREMY CORBYN about a bona fide report Labour found online.” They say, “So today, the ‘free and fearless’ UK media have doorstepped… Jeremy Corbyn. The excuse for this disgrace is a claim that a Tory trade document Labour exposed during the general election campaign was obtained by Russian hackers. It wasn’t given to Labour by Russian hackers – Labour accessed it online as did thousands of others – but was supposedly originally hacked by them.” They add, “Labour were late to the party, exposing the documents in November 2019 – but the right-wing Telegraph newspaper had them four months earlier, in July 2019,” and they show the headline in the Telegraph as proof.
Skwawkbox say, “The facts are obvious and easily verifiable. Yet a video released by Corbyn’s wife Laura Alvarez today shows right-wing media ‘doorstepping’ Corbyn and demanding to know whether he ‘regrets’ using the document; the document that he found online while Boris Johnson was busy burying the report on actual Russian interference in UK politics.” Forget all the billions pouring into Tory coffers donated by Russian Oligarchs, with political strings attached; hey, ‘nothing to see here.’ No the media have already ruthlessly trashed the reputation and political career of the most inspiring PM we never had, but that was not enough. Skwawkbox are spot on with their observation, “We are – and have been for a long time – well and truly through the looking glass and into the Orwellian territory on the other side, where Dominic Cummings bounces a dead cat to distract from Johnson’s guilt and the whole so-called ‘mainstream’ media gleefully collaborate.”
Despite this obvious ‘Dead Cat’ ploy I fear there will be a lot worse mud getting hurled and it will take a really shocking incident to detract from the revelations of that Russia Report. It would not have remained under wraps so long if it did not contain something truly incendiary. It could well highlight the nefarious contacts and disreputable dealing of the ‘Herd Nerd; do not let him off the hook this time: Cummings is the Grenade, oust him and you pull the pin! Starmer the enabler must be forced to actually speak up for the progressive socialist left and demand Cummings removal at last, instead of pathetically asking the PM to look into the matter. The Petition, “Dominic Cummings must be sacked,” is still collecting signatures, over a million so far; just in case you haven’t signed yet. I haven’t given up demanding a full Investigation into the Covert 2019 Rigged Election, but the Russia Report could open up a whole new can of worms. If new revelations challenge the Brexit vote we must protest and appeal to the EU for justice. DO NOT MOVE ON!