Democracy is lost

We already knew that the two main 2 leave" campaigns not only broke rules, but broke the law in regard to data and funding. Files are still being considered by the Metropolitan Police whether to bring criminal charges against Aron Banks and the rest. That such decision is taking over nine months is troubling.

That these things happened is not doubted, but what is also undoubted is the fact that the main TV news channels, BBC and ITV, do not report these things.

All this week Channel 4 news have run three nights of exposes on the issues. Last night it revealed that the then head of BBC Westminster department, Robbie Gibbs, agreed at a request by Banks to kill a story that Vote Leave targeted members of National Front and Britain First. Gibbs is now head of the PM's communications.

In her TED Talk, Guardian and Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr laid out in clear and concise terms how Facebook subverted democracy first in with Brexit then with Trump's election, allowing data to be released and the data used to target fake news ads to swing people who would be influenced or susceptible to such fake news. And then Facebook refuses to cooperate with any political inquiry as to what they have done.

When our once-reliable news sources don't report on this, what chance do we have?

Carole Cadwalladr has suffered an aggressive campaign undermining her mental health, professional reputation, but has tirelessly worked through, gathering information about vote leave, and the data mining company, Cambridge Analytica. She has now won journalistic awards, and is on the Pulitzer Prize shortlist for her work. THis is real journalism, that is being ignored, most worryingly, by the BBC. If we cannot trust our state broadcaster, then who can we trust?

Its flagship political discussion show , which is made by an outsourced company is planting people with extreme Brexit views, UKIP counsellors and failed MPs get to go on repeated times, and are among the few get to ask questions. The presenter of Radio 4's morning news show, Today, John Humphries makes no hiding of his Eurosceptic views, gives Brexiteers and easy time whilst browbeating anyone with a faint remainy view. He is to retire soon, but it is too late.

Even the BBC website, once home to more and more good journalism is now filled with more clickbait type stories, and is no longer the place to go for news.

The question as to where the DUP got £600,000 from and why they spent such a sum in a wrapround ad for a free newspaper in LOndon, which the last time I looked is nowhere near NI. And due to the snap election, the same DUP prop up May's minority Government.

This all stinks, and yet Brexiteers tell us the voice of the people, made manifest by the referendum vote must not be challenged, and yet at almost every turn, that can be shown to be won on lies and lawbreaking.

The maker of a video released two weeks before the referendum showing, apparently, how easy it was to get a RIB across the channel from France to Kent with "migrants", was show my reviewing the transponder data that the trip the "migrants" made was along the coast from Deal to Folkestone, it was just a fairy story When the maker was confronted with the evidence, he denied it, then shut the interview down.

We cannot carry on ignoring evidence and allowing illegal and suspect activity to go unchallenged. If we cannot get to the bottom of Facebook's involvement, the west can never have free and fair elections again, the result will be bought by those that can afford it. And as Carol says, will we be handmaidens for totalitarianism? Or will we stand up now?

But we need the support of one of the pillars of democracy, a free and fearless press that informs us as we sleepwalk to being trapped under the jackboot.