Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Cambridge Analytica cover up

Here is an article I wrote for the House Magazine in April 2017:

Snap election leaves no chance to address concerns about voter manipulation

The EU referendum proved that the Electoral Commission’s obsolete tools for monitoring cyber manipulation will ensure a free ride to those wishing to exploit it at the election, writes Labour MP Paul Flynn.

Not since the 1880 reforms have our systems for election and referendums been in greater peril. The single thunderous lesson from the EU Referendum is that new technology trumps long-established democratic safeguards. Clandestine artificial intelligence, algorithms, and invisible money sources can overwhelm surface democratic rules.

PACAC’s report Lessons learned from the EU referendum gained considerable attention for highlighting the possibility that foreign governments interfered with the referendum.

The voter registration website crashed last June threatening disenfranchisement of thousands, forcing the government to extend the registration deadline. The committee reported that the crash had indications of a botnet attack on the voter registration website.

The crash may well have been the result of an attack designed to influence political outcome. Worryingly there is no chance to address these concerns before Theresa May’s opportunistic snap election.

As we enter this election campaign period an alarming narrative is emerging of online voter targeting, calculated to cause mass interference and influence. An elite group is shaping world politics to suit their private beliefs, their behaviour having untold and unquantifiable effects. Whilst the plot reads like that of a comic book this cyber manipulation is no fiction and played a role in both the EU referendum and President Trump’s election.

Exceptional investigation work by journalist Carole Cadwalladr has exposed the wide reaching implications of the issue including the probity of June's General Election.

Billionaire Robert Mercer is Donald Trump’s biggest donor. He is also reported to be an owner of Cambridge Analytica, a company specialising in election strategies and involved in both the Trump and Brexit campaigns.

The company proved to be instrumental to Leave.EU and taught the campaign how to build profiles, target people and gain data from Facebook profiles.

When interviewed by Cadwalladr, Leave.EU’s communications director, admitted, “Facebook was the key to the entire campaign. A Facebook ‘like’ was their most “potent weapon”. Using artificial intelligence, as we did, tells you all sorts of things about that individual and how to convince them with what sort of advert. And you knew there would also be other people in their network who liked what they liked, so you could spread. And then you follow them. The computer never stops learning and it never stops monitoring.”

So worrying is Cambridge Analytica’s actions that the Information Commissioners Office has launched an investigation into their reported use of personal data.

There is contempt for the electoral process they are manipulating. Leave.EU have not declared Cambridge Analytica’s work as services in kind to the electoral commission. Arron Banks of Leave.EU has since declared “I don’t give a monkey’s about the Electoral Commission.”

In June the Electoral Commission is expected to deal with tomorrow’s problems. The referendum proved their outdated tools will ensure a free ride to those wishing to exploit it.

Broadcast advertising is subject to controls. Recent shifts have proved unfair advantages are now to be gained from online activity which lacks regulation.

Sir Tim Berners Lee has condemned the disgusting practice of selling private citizens online data. He summed up the problem best: “We’ve lost control of our personal data…it’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the web” and “Political advertising online needs transparency and understanding.”

Lobbyists and Billionaires are manipulating media and public opinion in defiance of transparency regulations.

We are in the disturbing era where lobbyists can weaponise fake news for the highest bidder. They can track voters’ personal data and manipulate public opinion. All of this they can do under cover of anonymity and without regulation or oversight.

The EU Referendum was a battle of dishonesty. It was won by the side with the means to distribute the most plausible lies.

Fore-warned - but not fore-armed.

 

Thanks to the great work of Carole Cadwaladr, the Guardian and Channel Four News , we have confirmation that out elections and referendum may have been rigged. They were told. This is the final point of Order of the Last Parliament. Since then I have constantly raised the undermining of our democracy. To their shame the PACAC Select refused to do their job in pursuing an inquiry they had started and is their responsibility. Congratulations to the Culture Committee for taking up the challenge

 

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)

26th April 2017

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wish to raise a matter that strikes right at the heart of the integrity of our democratic system. It is based on the final report of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, as well as two articles in The House magazine, one by a Conservative Member and one by a Labour Member, all of which sound notes of alarm that our electoral system is the most vulnerable it has been since 1880. There is powerful evidence of foreign Governments interfering in the elections in America and possibly here. There is also overwhelming evidence of money being paid in huge amounts, entirely invisible to the system, by the use of methods including algorithms, botnets and artificial intelligence in a manner understood by nobody except those who participate in it. We should be vigilant in this election, because the Electoral Commission does not have the tools to deal with interference of this kind, and we are trying to run a modern election with the tools of the 19th century.

Anti-Gwent bias among some AMs

Paul Flynn MP Newport West said:-

 

There is a worrying anti-Gwent, anti-Newport bias among some AMs that threatens our future traffic relief on the M4.

 

Some have swallowed the myth that there is a practical cheap alternative. Those of us who use the SDR road know that Newport will suffer more gridlock if an attempt is made to dump excess motorway traffic on an already jammed road. A second myth is that the money saved on a gimcrack alternative to the black route would be distributed throughout Wales. It will not be. The by-pass money was allocated to eliminate an intense UK national block to traffic for all of South Wales and Mid Wales.

 

We must ensure that our case is fully understood and the long awaited by-pass relieves traffic and pollution pressure on all of us.

 

 

Watchdog piddles on wrong tree.

Watchdog piddles on wrong tree.

Newsnight and its brilliant reporter Chris Cook have exposed a very credible list of parliamentary scandals-including Kids Company. They are entitled to the odd lapse. Attacking the relationship between MPs and Clerks they are off-target and piddling against the wrong tree. The anti-Bercow statement contrasts with his well established reputation based on the evidence of almost everyone else. The other claims are not new.  One has been investigated and judgements made. 

That relationships between MPs and Clerks are one of the great abiding strengths of Parliament.  Having served on, suffered on, despaired on, triumphed on Select Committees for 31 years, I abase myself before great parliamentary force for good. Among the vast Commons Community, things must occasionally go awry. I have no knowledge or comment on the allegations made. But I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of splendid working relationships with the intellectual strengths, impartiality and fairness of generations of clerks.

Select Committees have their problems and I have sounded off about them for decades. Some became politicised by their majorities or their chairpersons. Some deliver verdicts contrary to the evidence heard. Others go native descend into pressure groups such as farmers. The best remain anchored to the evidence and produce valuable challenges to the conventional (un)wisdom of parliament. For my money, the best reports of my time were A Health Committee report in 2005 about the self-serving deceptions of pharmaceutical companies and the Transport Committee report of 1993 that prophesied the calamities of Rail Privatisation.

Brexit has brought out the worst of Select Committees. Passionately committed chairs have distorted evidence and produced reports that are so laughingly biased, they have been ignored as serious contributions to the debate,

With so many problems, why attack the trust that exists between MPs and Clerks? Having experienced many conflicts with Committee Chairs and fellow members in the past, I can vouch for 31 years of respectful work with clerks. I have never experienced any animosity between them and MPs. They are an exemplary group to whom parliament owes its homage and gratitude.

Try again, Newsnight. They are many other targets worthy of your ire.