The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
SNP ‘held meetings with Cambridge Analytica’
CLAIM: The party has repeatedly laid into the Tories for links with the firm
The SNP held meetings with the controversial data harvesting firm Cambridge Analytica, according to a former director at the company.
Brittany Kaiser made the revelation during questioning from one of the party’s own MPS at a Commons committee yesterday.
Brendan O’hara, a nationalist MP, was caught off guard by the claim that the SNP were involved in “pitches and negotiations” with Cambridge Analytica.
Ms Kaiser told MPS they had met with “UK parties in the past such as the SNP”.
“I believe that there were meetings that took place in London where individuals came down from Edinburgh to visit us at our Mayfair headquarters,” she told the fake news inquiry.
“And then further meetings were undertaken in Edinburgh, near the parliament.”
The SNP branded the company a “bunch of cowboys” and insisted there had only been one meeting, with an “external consultant” representing the party.
Cambridge Analytica is accused of improperly accessing the data of millions of Facebook users, which was then allegedly used to influence the US presidential election and Brexit referendum.
The SNP has repeatedly laid into the Conservatives for its links with the firm.
Conservative party donors are among the investors of CA’S parent company, the SCL Group.
The Tories have admitted meeting CA under the previous leadership, but said they rejected the pitch.
Downing Street said they previously held three contracts with the SCL Group, but said they were concluded before the data harvesting issues arose.
Two of those SCL contracts began under the previous Labour administration, the Guardian reported.
An SNP spokeswoman said: “The SNP has never worked with Cambridge Analytica. An external consultant had one meeting in London.
“His assessment was that they were a bunch of cowboys, which turned out to be true. No further meetings were held.”
Ms Kaiser, who left CA in March after four years, also claimed during the inquiry that the misuse of people’s data in the UK was rife between Brexit campaign group Leave EU and other businesses owned by its founder Arron Banks.
Andy Wigmore, Leave EU’S communications director, called Ms Kaiser’s statements a “litany of lies” which she invented “to fit the anti-brexit narrative”.
gmcpherson@thecourier.co.uk