James O'Brien  0:00
I just want to set the scene first before I bring you the latest developments in this story. Go back to July of 2020 when a report by the UK Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee said that the government had been slow to recognize the threat posed by Russia in the run up to the 2016 EU referendum, and so did not take action to protect the UK from possible interference. It was an SNP, MP, Stuart Hosey, a member of the committee who called for an assessment of what role if any, Russia may have played.

Speaker 1  0:35
The committee found it astonishing that no one in government had sought beforehand to protect the referendum from such attempts, or investigated afterwards what attempts to influence it. There may have been the government, the UK Government should have recognized the threat back in 2014 in relation to the Scottish referendum, but it didn't. It didn't understand the threat until after the hack and leak operation against the Democratic National Committee in the United States, and because it was too slow to recognize the threat, it did not take action to protect the UK in 2016 one would have thought that once the existence of that threat had been understood, Seeing what had happened in the US that someone here would have wanted to understand the extent and nature of the threat to the UK, and we wanted to see the post referendum assessment, but there isn't one. There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum. And this goes back to nobody wanting to touch this issue with a 10 foot pole. This is in stark contrast to the US response to reports of interference in the 2016 presidential elections, no matter how politically awkward or potentially embarrassing, there should have been an assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum, and there must now be one, and the public must be told the results of that assessment.

James O'Brien  2:07
Don't hold your breath. It was the following day that Keir Starmer challenged Boris Johnson about this report, yes. PMQs, you may remember how Boris Johnson responded. There's

Speaker 2  2:16
been no doubt what this is really all about, Mr. Speaker, this is about pressure from the islingtonian remainers who have seized on this, on this report, to try to give the impression that the Russia, the Russian interference, was somehow responsible for Brexit. Mr. Speaker, that's what this is. This is all like the people of this this country didn't vote to leave the EU because of pressure from Russia or Russian interference. They voted because they wanted to take back control of our money, of our trade policy, of our laws. And the simple fact is that after campaigning for remain, after wanting to overturn the people's referendum, day in, day out, all the period when he was sitting on the labor front bench, he simply can't bring himself to accept that,

James O'Brien  2:57
Mr. Speaker, I see the Prime Minister's already on his pre prepared lines. This is a serious question, a serious question, of national security. The Prime Minister sat on this report for 10 months and failed to plug a gap in our law on national security for a year and a half, same Prime Minister, of course, it's easy to forget who, as Foreign Secretary, sort of hopped off on his way back from a NATO summit to discuss, among other things, Vladimir Putin's attempt to murder two dissidents in Salisbury, to attend a massive party hosted by a member Well, I mean, you technically would say a former member of the KGB, but of course, as Vladimir Putin has told us on many occasions, there's no such thing, and we still don't know what happened at that party, despite the best efforts of people like Carole CAD walleta, the former guardian and observer journalist and now the co founder of a very exciting new publication called the nerve but it is in your role as the co founder of the citizens pressure group that you helped organize this legal case. Carole, it's lovely to see you. Why has it taken so long penalties for the illegal Cereb

Carole Cad  4:06
James, I love the fact that you replayed those clips and reminded us of exactly what we're talking about here. And there is no explanation for why this has taken so long. I mean, like you can hear Keir Starmer right there saying to Boris Johnson, why? What's the delay? Why haven't we had this? And you know, that question now goes to Keir Starmer, and that's the basis of this really, really long running legal case. Now we, you know, we started this. We launched it in 2020, and it's a huge tribute to these three MPs, carolene, Lucas, Ben Bradshaw, Alan Smith, they've left parliament. They're on to other things, and yet here they are still persevering, still trying to beat this drum and now taking it to you know, it's known as the sort of Supreme Court in Europe, the European Court of Human Rights, and it only tests the. The most critical and consequential cases. And that's why this is actually a kind of very exciting possibly moment for finally getting to the truth of what we the British citizens, have so far been denied.

James O'Brien  5:14
And I mean, part of this is establishing the necessity of it the clear and I quote from the claim enforceable duty on the UK to investigate credible foreign interference in elections and to adopt proactive safeguards. And Johnson, being Johnson, he kind of fudged or dodged the main issue. It doesn't matter whether the influence worked or not. That kind of thing, as with the United States in 2016 will be impossible to measure or to prove, although the sort of proliferation of social media activity of dubious provenance suggests that the efforts were great, it's establishing whether the efforts were made that matters, not whether they worked.

Speaker 3  5:53
Well, actually, I tell you what which is so. This is new information. Okay, so, and we were waiting till we got kind of proper legal advice on this. But what happened is, this is already this went to the European Court of Human Rights. It got accelerated through the European Court of Human Rights because they fast tracked it, because they believe this case is of massive significance to all the other states across Europe who are facing exactly the same problem. Now. What that judgment showed in July of this year is that the court in their judgment states as fact that there was foreign interference, and they we know that is there, but where they stopped so they kind of agreed with our entire claim, and then they stopped just short of this one thing, and that's this legal point about whether European law this, whether there is an obligation by states to investigate that interference, and that is the principle which we are now testing. We're seeking to test in the grand chamber, and that is a really big deal. Lee day, this massive human rights legal firm who've been running this case. They've never been to the grand chamber before. It's like it's only in these very, very significant cases. And the fact is, we know it's so significant because we know, and the rest of Europe knows it's significant because we can see what Russia is doing in Europe. They're literally flying their drones into European airspace. The threat couldn't be more urgent and more imminent, and yet here we are still putting our head in the stands, still refusing to acknowledge that there is this problem in Britain, even as you know, we know me and you James, know about you know this peculiar case of Nathan Gill and how peculiar it is that that's really not being followed up in the press here.

James O'Brien  7:43
It's been followed up a bit although the New York Times probably led the field. How surprised were you Carole CAD wallet, that a close friend, protege and political ally of Nigel Farage, had been taking bribes from a Kremlin stooge?

Carole Cad  7:57
I mean, I think we're all surprised in that there is so many elements of surprise here. And I would contest, actually the New York Times has led on this. It's very much so this new publication, I've set up the nerve and independent outlet, you know, well, by line times, we've actually said they've done the court everybody did the court reports. But the point is, there's lot more information about Nathan Gill, about this Kremlin network of which he was part and and there is information laying in plain sight, and that hasn't been reported on or followed up, even though we can now, you know, understand that this wasn't just a matter of taking a couple of bungs. This was a really big, high level Kremlin operation to destabilize Ukraine, and it stretches across Europe and into the United States and, and I don't think you know, what I can see from the coverage is the extent of that, the the the high level nature of it, has not been really reported across the press. And but I didn't answer your question. But whether I was surprised, I was really surprised that somebody be dumb enough to keep WhatsApp messages about, you know, money going into your account from a man who is a Kremlin agent. That did seem to me a bit dumb. I have to say,

James O'Brien  9:09
the tactics, not necessarily the behavior. I am. You're absolutely right about the coverage. Do you think there's a link? Do you think this actually, I haven't got you for very long. Let me ask you a slightly different question. How on the hook is Keir Starmer now, in your view, I mean, because he could have called for the inquiries in the investigation. So we can speculate as to why Boris Johnson, close friend, as I mentioned, of a KGB agent, chose not to. Why might Keir Starmer not have called the investigation that you want, you and your colleagues want.

Carole Cad  9:40
Because I can't, I think, I mean, I'd be interested in what your view is here. Because I think my view has always been around this, which is that Brexit is the great black hole of British history, which nobody wants to go near. And the fact is, is that Nathan Gill, as we know, close friend and associate of Nigel Farage. J protege and and we also know I tell you another thing, James, which was in our latest report in the nerve there is no explanation as to why the police uncovered this evidence back in 2021 earliest, 2022 they did not charge Nathan Gill for another three years now. Why and why? And because the key and the key thing here, which brings us bang up today, it means that the British public know nothing of this, and it means that the voters in Caerphilly who are going to the polls tomorrow to vote in a critical by election in which the guy who's standing is the parliamentary aide, the former parliamentary aide to Nathan Gill, okay, who is refusing to answer questions about that relationship or what he knew. The voters in Caerphilly know absolutely nothing about this. And that's what's so extraordinary. It's so extraordinary. And that was the piece that we did in the nerve at the weekend, because there's this extraordinary woman at the center of it who, you know, there's like, amazing sort of shots of her in a bikini in any normal circumstances. This would be all over the Daily Mail. It would be all over the sun. I don't understand why nobody's interested in this incredible tale of these Russian agents, and

James O'Brien  11:21
we'll do more on it as well. And thank you for what you've done at the nerve and you've mentioned the carefully by election. So I now have to stress that the candidate you refer to has denied all knowledge of Nathan Gill bribery offenses at the time, while they were working as a constituency caseworker for him. And the full list of candidates for the conservatives, Gareth Potter for the Green Party, Gareth Hughes for gorlad. Anthony cook for labor, Richard tonicliff applied. It's Lindsay Whittle for reform, UK Leah Powell and for UKIP crikey, Roger Quilliam. And there's another candidate running in Caerphilly, who is Steve aishler of the Welsh Liberal Democrats. There's a

Carole Cad  11:58
Crowdfunder that all the citizens running for this legal case. Please, please. We, we can only support this through public funding. We need answers. We know, you know, there is such a history, a catalog of cover ups around the Russia report. We really need your help to be able to, sort of like, continue with,

James O'Brien  12:14
where do people find that? Crowdfunder, Carole, is it?

Carole Cad  12:17
That's a really good question. It's if you go to my Twitter, or which is, I'm at Carole CAD Waller, you'll find a link there, or at all the citizens Twitter and

James O'Brien  12:26
when? When do you have your day in court? When does this reach? When is the next chapter open?

Carole Cad  12:32
You know what? It's very mysterious, in mysterious ways. I can't specifically answer that, but we know these things are slow but, but it also puts pressure on the government, and that's kind of an important thing to keep up as well.

James O'Brien  12:46
So get yourself over to the nerve as well to read up on the work that Carole and her colleagues are doing over there. It's great. It's a few X observer journalists, isn't it, and it's looking great.

Carole Cad  12:58
Thank you. Yeah, the nerve dot news. And it's like, we've, we're starting very small, we're grassroots, we're we just decided that, you know, we really believe in independent journalism. And you know, my colleagues, I didn't have the choice of going over to the new observer title, but they did. They took redundancy. Instead, we're going out on a massive limb, but it's because we believe that, you know, stories like this highlight, there is a gap. You know, we need more reporting. We need more holding people's feet to the fire. And also, the other thing that we're doing is we're, like, really keen that we've got to have fun, we've got to cover culture, we've got to have nice things in there. It can't all be like doom and gloom

James O'Brien  13:35
just as well. Thank you. Carole CAD wallet, it's good to see you looking so well, and we'll talk to you again, no doubt, or at least to somebody about some of the issues that she's mentioned and quite rightly described as being criminally, chronically, hideously under reported. And that new organ is called the nerve. And the organization that is funding this legal case established already that Russian interference occurred, but looking at a proper investigation into what it looked like and what it what it did, and who was responsible. Should I correct myself, as well as having described Boris Johnson as a close friend of a KGB, should I say the son of a KGB? I don't know he. I think he was at the part where he was at the party.