It is an old trick to use the protection of parliamentary privilege to get out something you would have difficulty getting past newspaper lawyers. Yesterday’s claim by pro-remain MPs that the Legatum think-tank’s founder Christopher Chandler, was an “object of interest” to French intelligence is based on information originating from Robert Eringer. Eringer has been convicted of criminal defamation five times and is just not credible.

Eringer’s central allegation revolved round confusing two similarly named firms; “Sovereign Asset Management AG” which was closed down by the Swiss authorities and “Sovereign Asset Management Limited” which was operated by Chandler. Some of the allegations were made under Labour MP Liam Byrne’s byline in the New European and were rebutted at length last December. Throw in a Russian link and you have a great conspiracy theory. Unfortunately it doesn’t make any sense.

What is going on is that remainers in parliament are hitting out at a think-tank that was once home to a Brexit research team that has now moved to the Institute of Economic Affairs and so in any event no longer has any involvement in the Brexit issue. That was the real motivation for originally making these claims…

Download: Letter For the Attention of Rt. Hon. Liam Byrne MP