Below is a section of yesterday’s blog that has been changed and changed again in odd circumstances. It will be convenient to put it into a separate blog so people can follow easier…

EDITED SECTION OF YESTERDAY BLOG…

I didn’t know anything about the personal relationships between Wylie/Shahmir/SP until a few days ago but here is Stephen Parkinson’s (SP) statement:

‘I was not introduced to Shahmir Sanni or Darren Grimes by Chris Wylie as he is claiming, but by a mutual friend from university. Shahmir became an occasional volunteer for Vote Leave and other leave campaigns, and we began a personal relationship. We subsequently dated for 18 months, splitting up – I thought amicably – in September 2017. That is the capacity in which I gave Shahmir advice and encouragement, and I can understand if the lines became blurred for him, but I am clear that I did not direct the activities of any separate campaign groups. I had no responsibility for digital campaigning or donations during the referendum, and am confident that Vote Leave acted entirely within the law and strict spending rules at all times.’

[Added the next day… The statement above was originally on this blog yesterday. Then I got requests on behalf of Shahmir to remove it on the grounds that relatives in Pakistan might get killed. Then Shahmir put out his own statement admitting the relationship and attacking Parkinson for ‘outing’ him. So I have restored the statement above and left the below here, so people can see the weird context. 1) Given the nature of Shahmir’s accusations against the Prime Minister’s Political Secretary, no reasonable person would have thought Parkinson could explain all this to the PM and media while hiding the fact of their relationship. 2) Shahmir’s behaviour is not consistent with someone prioritising relatives ‘at serious risk’ in Pakistan, to say the least. 3) Shahmir is unquestionably telling lies about BeLeave — either he was lying to VL’s board member in charge of compliance, who has detailed written notes taken after talking to Shahmir in 2016 about the independence of BeLeave (when Shahmir said it was all ethical and legal), or he is lying now. There’s no third alternative. Given all the other evidence about this, a reasonable person will conclude he’s probably lying now. Maybe it’s connected to his relationship (used in a general sense) with Wylie, maybe not. 4) Wylie literally has described himself as ‘a smear merchant’. Are the media going to report seriously allegations from someone like this? 5) An interesting side issue is that the legal point Shahmir’s lawyers used to try to gag the media yesterday is an ECHR point. It is absurd in principle and this case is a good example of why: person X makes accusations publicly about person Y then gets lawyers to tell Y ‘you can’t answer these accusations in a way that reveals anything about my sex life even if it’s directly relevant to the accusations’. The ECHR creates these legal problems all the time. The media should have had more courage to defend the public interest yesterday and ignored this argument. If I get involved in politics again, then a referendum on the ECHR should be high on the agenda — and bear in mind most people probably think we’re already leaving it because of the 2016 referendum, so imagine how mad they’ll be when they realise we’re still in it.]

[XXX NB. I have removed this statement. I have been sent a letter apparently from lawyers saying people might get killed as a consequence and asking me to remove it for their safety. Despite this being entirely the Observer’s/C4’s fault, I obviously won’t take any risk that people are physically attacked. I will take steps to discover if Bindmans are acting in good faith, whom for, and so on. If I think communications from Bindmans or subsequent coverage by CC/C4 reveal a lack of good faith, and seek to use my removal of this statement to claim, in any way shape or form that I have admitted fault/liability etc about anything, or make dishonest claims about the relationships of specific people because they think they can keep certain details secret using legal threats, then I will put it back up immediately as they will have revealed they were lying about physical dangers for political advantage. It is in your hands, CC/C4 and whistleblowers — I’m cutting you a break you don’t deserve. Journalists please note that I’m unclear what is happening and I’m just assuming this email is genuine given the scale of the issue. Also NB. the legal issue at stake concerns an aspect of the ECHR — and this reminds me that another project we need to get going is a referendum on that, much easier to win than the EU, we’ll win 65-35…]