Author Archives: Marguerita Morton

Parliament is now in recess but our work to fight against Brexit continues. I am speechless at the sheer contempt and arrogance of those who rigged the voting system of the UK during the EU referendum and try to get away with it.

We, as Lib Dems, who uphold the rule of law and believe in fair play did not act illegally as some supporters of Vote Leave or Leave.EU did in the run up to the referendum. People such as Dominic Cummings have used Cambridge Analytica to micro target online users with their untruthful ads without their knowledge or permission. This was facilitated by Facebook who provided the values, demographics, location and even “psychographic” profiles of groups of voters based on their personalities. These techniques originate from military “psy-ops” used to confuse the enemy and to ultimately control or conquer. Regardless of how effective or prevalent these techniques are, they should not be the norm for conducting our elections. The Observer and The Guardian journalists have very astutely uncovered a black hole at the heart of our democracy where transparency is eroded making it easier to mislead the electorate by unfettered and unscrutinised advertising that goes unchallenged. It makes it easier to make misleading or untrue statements. But even more dangerous, it makes it possible for foreign interference in our elections.

I felt very privileged to be asked to represent the Chinese Lib Dems at this historic centenary of the arrival of the Chinese Labour Corps on the Western Front of WWI. The story was made more poignant by the fact that they did not know they were being sent into a theatre of the most devastating war of the 20th century. I was particularly saddened to hear the stories from some of the descendants that these men were not appreciated even at the time of their hard labours and continued to this very day.