Today, the Spectator blows up other claims.
The most striking bit of ‘evidence’ the Observer produced recently was a video which they claimed showed the ‘destruction of evidence’ and a ‘coverup’. At the time I said that it did not show who or what the Observer claimed. (I won’t post it to avoid spreading fake news.)
The Spectator carries a statement from Vote Leave directors sent to the Electoral Commission proving that the Observer claims are entirely false:
‘This statement concerns a serious allegation against Ms Victoria Woodcock recently made by Shahmir Sanni et al, which we have reviewed urgently and needed to respond to more immediately, alleging what was variously described as data deletion on, or removal of access permissions from, Vote leave’s ‘BeLeave’ folder on March 17th 2017. We are now in a position to respond on this matter following a forensic review of Vote Leave’s Google Drive.
‘Ms Woodcock did not on that date access, delete, amend, or change permissions for any data or files on the BeLeave folder, as alleged by the so-called whistle-blowers and as is purported to be shown in the GIF published by The Observer. Allegations that claim she did are false and are based on misconceptions and misunderstandings of how Google Drive works.
‘Prior to March 17th 2017 Ms Woodcock was the Data Controller for Vote Leave and, in preparation for closedown, the majority of documents on its drive had been incorporated by her into a super-folder in her name. As a next step in the closedown process, it was decided that Ms Woodcock should hand over her responsibilities on March 17th 2017, and accordingly, on that date, her access to the Vote Leave Gdrive was removed. Later that day, continuing the closedown, at the direction of the Board and as a part of a standard data protection exercise, permissions were removed from folders across the Gdrive (of which the BeLeave folder was a part) for a group of high-level users (this group included, but was by no means merely, Ms Woodcock and the other two individuals shown in the GIF).
‘Ms Woodcock’s name appears as the user making the changes because she had been the super-administrator and data controller, so the “Victoria Woodcock” account was a convenient one to use, to achieve best visibility across the G Drive; the changes were in fact made by an authorised Vote Leave administrator, using her account, at a time when Ms Woodcock had had her access removed so would therefore not even have known that this activity was taking place. Independent IT consultants have verified that no BeLeave files were deleted from the folder. Permissions were removed, not by Victoria Woodcock; from folders across the drive, not just the BeLeave folder; and for a wider group than the three individuals shown in the Observer’s GIF.
‘These allegations against Ms Woodcock are therefore groundless.’ (Emphasis added)
In short, VW was removed from access to the drive before the video was taken, the video does NOT show her, it shows a different person to the Observer’s claim doing something completely different to the Observer’s claim, and nothing was deleted. (I was removed from access to this system long before 17 March 2017.)
Everything the Observer/C4 claimed about this GIF/video was wrong. No responsible media organisation should repeat the libellous allegations from Observer/C4.
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2 other interesting snippets re the EU today.
1/ The GDPR legislation is horrific. One of the many advantages of Brexit is we will soon be able to bin such idiotic laws. We will be able to navigate between America’s poor protection of privacy and the EU’s hostility to technology and entrepreneurs. It doesn’t matter that this Government will sign up to a shockingly bad deal that purports to keep us in such stuff. The deal will be binned. With Brexit, it is the long-term that counts most — not what ministers like DD say and sign.
Hacks should ask around big companies for lunatic documents circulating to staff giving them directions on how to behave under GDPR to see what I mean. From baby photos to sickies, hacks will have a field day.
Also note that Whitehall is happy to spend huge amounts of time and effort passing GDPR and associated bullshit while stalling on preparations to make the UK a ‘third country’ under EU law and claiming to ministers that preparations to leave the EU are ‘illegal’ (and requiring they make written notices to Permanent Secretaries and other classic moves of the normal bureaucratic chess match). This Government is so comical that we will soon leave the EU without preparing to leave the EU AND we will not even prepare to leave the EU after we have already left because officials continue to argue such preparations are illegal 2019-2020 and DD has already conceded the argument. (Officials use various devices including our supposed obligations under A50.) If I had wanted to create a story to demonstrate my long-running claims about Whitehall, I could hardly have bettered this.
Whitehall spends much more time implementing new EU law than preparing to get out of EU law and almost all Ministers have so little grip of their departments, and have so little support from May (herself an avatar for Heywood and Robbins), that they meekly acquiesce. The Cabinet even now has never insisted on a single discussion with responsible officials over preparations — a dereliction of duty that will be seen by history as similar to the failure of the pre-World War I Cabinet to have discussions about UK military commitments to France.
2/ During the campaign VL warned that the ECJ would use the Charter of Fundamental Rights (NB. NOT the ECHR/HRA) to interfere with UK intelligence services and police. Cameron and Osborne claimed this was ‘lies’ even though it was perfectly obvious this would happen to anybody reading ECJ cases.
An example of what we warned about is HERE. Today’s judgment undermines the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 using the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Conservatives used to claim that these powers were vital for national security and fighting crime.
The ECJ will soon decide in the Privacy International on further aspects of the Five Eyes Agreement. During the campaign, Cameron, Osborne, Grieve and their collaborators claimed EU law would have no effect on the Five Eyes agreement. An example of the repeated dishonesty by Grieve on this subject is HERE. Grieve claimed that Gove’s statements during the referendum were wrong, ‘unfounded and indeed untenable’ and so on. It is Grieve’s claims on the Charter that are factually and legally wrong and ‘untenable’ in the light of the actual law and actual ECJ decisions. Grieve’s repeated bullshit on this issue should be called out by broadcast interviews. The treatment of him as an impartial expert is absurd. He is no expert and he is repeatedly dishonest on the subject.
Today’s judgment will be one of many if we remain ‘aligned’ to EU law and the Charter. Are MPs going to win the argument that we will leave the EU but leave the ECJ in charge of our response to terrorism? Not long-term. (And this is why we will win a referendum on the ECHR too.)
Of course, every single bit of advice that VL gave pre-referendum about what to do has been ignored by the Conservative government and MPs generally, from how to handle A50 to the need for investment in the NHS to this issue.
VL said that there should be ‘notwithstanding ECA1972’ legislation to remove the ECJ from any interference with the intelligence services, which would be strongly supported by Leave and Remain voters. Instead, the Government will accept this judgment and do nothing about it despite their previous promises. Ministers will, as usual, be easily bamboozled by officials waving ‘legal advice’ at them, just as Heywood bamboozled them into their catastrophic decisions on A50 by waving ‘legal advice’ at them.
This is just one small example of how extremely rubbish this government is and why it is vital that there are radical changes as soon as Brexit happens next March. This government, Parliament, and Whitehall generally are not remotely able to cope with the hard reboot of Brexit. Vote Leave warned them they could not do Brexit with the normal dysfunctional management processes of Whitehall. They ignored this advice and have collapsed into repeated and inescapable shambles.
Many in SW1 think that willpower can bounce them from the actual branch of reality we are on to a neighbouring branch of the multiverse where they can escape the referendum, just as many Brexit supporters think willpower can bounce them into a branch of the multiverse where we can escape all the disastrous effects of the May government. Both are wrong. ‘Reality cannot be fooled’ indefinitely. A hard rain is coming for SW1…
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