Two items in the news struck me this morning. The Telegraph (HERE) has described fifteen Conservative MPs who are rebelling against a government amendment to the Withdrawal Bill that would set a definite time and date for exit, as "mutineers" in a similar way to The Mail describing remainers as "saboteurs" and enemies of the people. It is to question the patriotism of anyone opposed to Brexit or the kind of Brexit suggested by some extremists.
Yet on the same day The Guardian (HERE) reports that thousands of tweets supporting Brexit were issued from fake accounts in Russia as part of a campaign to encourage division and perhaps begin a process that would lead to the break up of the EU. This is a key foreign policy aim of Vladimir Putin, actively supported by the Brexiteers who claim a patriotic attachment to the United Kingdom. Strange isn't it?
How can helping to achieve the policy objectives of the country representing the greatest threat to the UK and the western world be seen as patriotic? But somehow it is.
And I would be very surprised if the only effort the Kremlin made to encourage Brexit was to create a few fake twitter accounts. The Russian Internet Research Agency (odd how the acronym is the same as the Irish republican movement) is a government run organisation and it seems slightly pusillanimous to just get 419 twitter accounts going doesn't it? Expect more revelations to come.
