Brits want an official investigation into the Brexit Leave campaign. They\u2019re getting an HBO drama instead.<\/b>
\nOn Friday, HBO revealed the trailer for its upcoming film Brexit, a Toby Haynes-directed drama about the 2016 Vote Leave campaign that \u201cgoes behind the scenes, revealing the personalities, strategies and feuds of the Leave and Remain campaigns,\u201d according to HBO.
Set to premiere on HBO and the United Kingdom\u2019s Channel 4 on January 19, Brexit aims to be a dramatic retelling of the highly advanced political campaign that encouraged Brits to vote to leave the European Union \u2014 a campaign whose tactics, motivations, and repercussions are yet to be fully understood.
The film, an international co-production with BBC Studios, Channel 4, and House Productions, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the man who spearheaded that campaign: Dominic Cummings.
Cummings, whom the trailer introduces by saying \u201cMeet the man behind Brexit,\u201d was the Campaign Director for Vote Leave from its creation in October 2015, and is credited with coming up with the slogan \u201cTake back control.\u201d (Observer columnist Nick Cohen recently called him \u201cthe most important contemporary figure 99 percent of the population have never heard of.\u201d)
In the trailer, Cummings appears to stoke racial resentment, asking, \u201cIs it immigration? You can be honest. Is it race? Which countries don\u2019t you like?\u201d \u2014 while writing \u201cTurkey\u201d on a door covered in notes and explaining the Leave movement as about a desire to \u201creturn to a time when we knew our place.\u201d
The trailer references the advanced, questionable data tactics the campaign employed, with Cumberbatch\u2019s Cummings discussing \u201chacking the electoral system\u201d and building a social media strategy that \u201cwill re-stack the odds in our favor.\u201d
The film\u2019s timing is controversial, with the UK deeply divided over how to leave the EU, and whether the decision to do so was undertaken fairly.
A number of Brits have taken to Twitter to express their anger at the film. Carole Cadwalladr, a journalist who has conducted extensive investigations into Vote Leave, compared it to the UK making a film about special counsel Robert Mueller\u2019s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election as it unfolds.
As Brexit negotiations crawl to a standstill, details of the tactics the Leave campaign used are still being uncovered. There is no single \u201cinvestigation\u201d into the campaign as there is with Donald Trump, although Cadwalladr \u2014 among others \u2014 has suggested that Britain needs its own Mueller-style inquiry.
Fair Vote UK is preparing to launch a legal challenge over the government\u2019s refusal to hold an inquiry into the \u201cirregular and unlawful conduct\u201d that may have influenced the result, including Russian disinformation and breaches of electoral spending laws.
The Leave campaign has been investigated, however, by the UK Electoral Commission over its use of funds and data. In July, an Electoral Commission probe found that Vote Leave had broken electoral law, exceeding its \u00a37 million spending limit by funneling money through another pro-Brexit group, BeLeave (the official leave and remain campaigns were limited in what they were allowed to spend). With the referendum resulting in a narrow 51.9 percent victory for Leave, some argue that this overspending could have been decisive.\u201d (One conservative MP has made multiple allegations over the Remain campaign\u2019s spending, but these have all been rejected by the Electoral Commission).
Brits in the Remain camp have also drawn attention to the \u00a32.7 million the Leave campaign spent on data services from Aggregate IQ, a Canadian digital marketing firm linked to Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie has claimed that the firm helped \u201c cheat \u201d the Brexit vote, along with the US presidential election, though Facebook last month claimed their was no evidence that data was used in UK campaigns.
Dominic Cummings, the man at the heart of HBO\u2019s film, has refused to appear before a House of Commons committee inquiry into fake news, which has also summoned the former head of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix.<\/p>\n