A new organisation has sprung up over the last few days calling itself the “Fair Vote Project”, committed to “publishing whistleblower evidence connected to possible cheating in the referendum”. It seems to exist solely to provide angry quotes at the bottom of Remainer newspaper articles claiming the referendum result is invalid. Given the “Fair Vote Project” is only interested in talking about alleged Leave overspending – not the overwhelming evidence of much greater Remain overspending – it will come as absolutely no surprise that it is run by Kyle Taylor, who used to work for ultra-Remain spin shop Best for Britain. And who is putting up the money for the Fair Vote Project? Only Byline Festival, run by Peter Jukes, the tin-foil hatted Twitter conspiracy theorist who makes Carole Cadwalladr look sensible. This is the level of conspiratorial nonsense ultra-Remainers are pushing…

Guido is sad to report that Peter Jukes and his Byline Media outfit have finally gone off the deep end. To the concern of their Twitter followers, over the last few days Jukes and Byline have been pushing increasingly deranged conspiracy theories that would make David Icke think twice. First, Jukes and his Byline colleague J.J Patrick suggested the Momentum agitators at the Rees-Mogg event were actually right-wing imposters, that the fracas was staged and that the Mogg was in on it. Just read this… it is worryingly delusional.

Jukes then doubled down on the conspiracy theory, implying that Steve Bannon taught Rees-Mogg about “creating events to trigger culture wars”.

This morning Jukes’ delusions have taken another turn for the worse. He is now suggesting on Twitter that the death threat sent to Zac Goldsmith’s 80 year-old constituent was faked, and that the death threat, the Rees-Mogg event and the new Tory campaign against intimidation have been “orchestrated” at the behest of Steve Bannon:

Sad…

Try not to laugh too hard. The Leveson-compliant press regulator Impress has made its first adjudication, ruling against Byline Media, one of its most vocal defenders. Byline, the conspiracy theory site with tinfoil mad-hatter Peter Jukes as CEO, was found guilty of defaming tabloid journalist Dennis Rice and ordered to pay him £2,500 in damages. The irony is just too delicious. Byline signed up to Impress as part of its campaign against the tabloid press. Now Impress has ruled against them and forced them to write a £2,500 cheque to one of their main critics.

“Dennis Rice, the claimant, contacted IMPRESS to make a request for arbitration to settle a legal claim of defamation, harassment and malicious falsehood, arising from two tweets sent out from the Byline Media Twitter account on 6th March 2017. On 7th April, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators appointed Clive Thorne as independent arbitrator for the case. In the award, Mr Thorne upheld the claim in part. He found one of the two tweets to be defamatory and ordered that damages of £2,500 be awarded to Mr Rice.”

Byline – which campaigns for higher media standards – has been officially found to publish fake news…

Byline Media, the website run by anti-free press obsessive Peter Jukes, is organising a festival on journalism in the “post truth era”… with The Canary. Over three days in June Byline will be hosting a line-up of press-hating speakers including John Cleese and Hugh Grant in a tent in Sussex, which they are genuinely billing as a “Woodstock for the Facebook generation”. The festival promises to “fight back against fake news” found in the mainstream media. Who best to lead the charge? Byline will be welcoming in Kerry Anne Mendoza, editor-in-chief of the infamous fake news site The Canary, which was behind the Portland coup conspiracy theory. Tells you all you need to know about the credibility of Byline and Jukes…