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1. Thread in response to brilliant @carolecadwalla's plea for Brits to ask more questions about the Bannon/Trump/Assange connection theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
2. The complete pusillanimity of British journalism over Farage's Russian and US connections over the years is completely understandable
3. It took a German paper to finally ask Farage about Putin earlier this year, but British papers either boost him, or studiously avoid investigating him
4. That's partly because British print investigative journalism has collapsed in the wake of ad revenue slump and post phone hacking demoralisation (and loss of use of private Investigators)
5. But more than anything because the monopoly owner Murdoch, and Desmond and the Barclay Brothers approve of Brexit and laud Farage. Dacre also backs Brexit if not Farage
6. The BBC, cowed by threats from the 80% Brexit newspaper moguls, from UKIP fake research, and of course Culture Ministers like Whittingdale, feel they have to entertain Farage
7. So commercially and institutionally, despite brilliant individual journos like Carole and @lukeharding1968, there's no interest in investigating Farage because of Brexit.
8. But what about law enforcement? Farage's Russian connections have been hidden in plain sight for over 7 years. Special Branch, GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, know much much more.
9. After Putin's annexation of the Crimea and the inquest into the murder of Litvinenko and others, there was no reason to keep Putin sweet. So no need for huge caution there
10. Of course, billions of stolen Russian money has been laundered through London shell companies, and much must have been used in the UK
11. Perhaps these UK assets of oligarch's close to Putin has influenced law enforcement. Media assets may have influenced press coverage.
12. But none of that is enough to explain the complete lack of investigation of UKIP funding and Russian links. There's only one explanation
13. At least the FBI believe there is as explanation. A single but highly credible source tells me they are staggered by our law enforcement
14. This is not separately confirmed by other sources, and needs verification for a full piece, but is worth putting out there before that..
15. I'm told senior Europe based FBI officers investigated the supineness of British law enforcement and came to one conclusion...
16. The conclusion was: "Every single police force in the UK has a far right or UKIP officer helping them avoid justice
17. As I said, this is not separately verified, but I believe it is of such glaring public interest that it's worth sharing so that we can pressurise our police to follow up Mueller's work when more is revealed
18. My sense is that Farage and UKIP will become a major factor for the FBI in the US and the UK govt will be forced to act eventually
