If Russian data analysts and hackers (which now seems apparent) were engaged to help create Trump and Brexit, they did a good job.

I was never clear how data analysts could corrupt elections until I watched ‘The Hack’ on Saturday. The Netflix Original documentary was excellent in that it explained how this happens in simplified terms.

Data Hacking

With personal information stripped from Facebook accounts by organisations (chiefly Cambridge Analytica) political movements had a platform to corrupt people’s thought process. Like many people, because I my mind up with Brexit a long time ago, I couldn’t work out how I, or anyone else could be corrupted.

That is true as well. Cambridge Analytica weren’t interested in me. They would have analysed my data and blogs and put me in a category where my mind was made up. They did this with both fervent Brexiteers and Remainers. They were put in the unpersuadable bin.

Their target was what they knew as ‘the persuadables’.  Persuadables were people with a low voting record, no political allegiance but with, perhaps, an impulsive and naive nature. These people were stripped down with every ounce (or kilobyte) of their personal detail analysed.

Hitting the Persuadables

They were then hit, time and again with memes and videos by populist propaganda news groups (Breitbart for instance). It was relentless. For those of you can remember the film ‘Brexit, the Uncivil War’, you will recall the following line. ‘Hit them hard with £350 million and Turkey, £350 million and Turkey’.

This referred to the NHS gaining £350 million a week after Brexit and the imminent threat of millions of Turks flooding into Britain with their new EU status. These were both blatant lies of course. The amount we pay the EU is more like £156 million and it isn’t going to the NHS. Turkey are nowhere near joining the EU at any time soon, if ever at all.

However, that didn’t matter. Dominic Cummings, a very bright populist who appears to love the role of kingmaker by mind control, knew he could get the result. By attacking those with little or no interest in voting and pummelling them with emotive subjects (the NHS is a classic example) he knew he could swing the vote. The lies didn’t matter, they could be swept away in the chaos.

Here Comes the Blame Game!

Cummings is now a strategist in the new Conservative cabinet that have, at last, got the keys to the asylum. His populist influence is off to a flier. 20,000 new police officers, money flying around all over the shop, despite a collapse in the pound and promises galore.

When it doesn’t work, Cummings will make it the EU’s fault because they woudn’t play ball. The situation will be turned on its head. Despite Britain deciding to leave, economic pain will be all the EU’s fault for being unwilling to give Britain its cake and telling 27 other nations to watch them eat it. Jingoism works and it will work here too, you can already see it in action.

The role of populist movements is to cause chaos. This is so they can implement their ideology amongst the rubble. With millions of pounds at their disposal and willing frontmen like Trump, Nigel Farage and now Johnson, trousering a tidy sum to whip up the naïve and the ignorant, the populists are a formidable force.

Where it all ends, we just don’t know.

With credit, what Johnson has done, is create an end game. Something will give on the 31^st October, but it is looking like a chaotic exit. The EU will get the full force of British hatred in The Sun, The Mail, The Express, The Times and The Telegraph. It is worth noting that these media groups are all owned by populist billionaires with offshore accounts and shady nontaxed money all over the planet.

What happens thereafter is anyone’s guess. The EU may remain resolute, it may collapse. If it collapses it would be an absolute dream of a scenario for Putin; an opportunity to push back into former Soviet states.

Trade With Trump

What does it mean for our ‘special relationship’ with Trump’s America? Trade deals certainly, but for what? If anyone thinks we are in for a golden new connection with the US, go and ask the staff of any British company taken over by Americans. You could start with Cadbury’s.

The £350 million for the NHS will seem even more ridiculous when we haven’t got an NHS. Open trade deals with America leave everything vulnerable, from pharmaceuticals, to the environment, to food standards. With a ‘No Deal’ Brexit all the standards will be ripped up and rewritten by people in it for themselves.

With the billions bankrolling it, I am not sure there is anyone with the charisma, wit, or ability to galvanise the common man into calling a halt to the whole fucking debacle. Not least because swathes of the common people are mad enough to believe this mob are working for them.

It’s a fucking crazy world right now and someone needs to get a grip of it before it ends in blood and tears.