Teenage Brexit Party staffer admits role in Darroch leak

SCOTLAND YARD risked being dragged into a politically charged row over Sir Kim Darroch’s leaked emails after a teenager working for the Brexit Party said he was the middleman who obtained the classified documents.

Steven Edginton, 19, who runs the Brexit Party’s social media feeds, insisted he passed the documents to Isabel Oakeshott, a political journalist.

Mr Edginton, who also describes himself as a freelance journalist, said he did not want his name on the articles, subsequently published in The Mail on Sunday, “to avoid possible controversy”.

But the key role of Mr Edginton in the leak will cause problems for the Metropolitan Police and intelligence agencies. It raises the prospect of counter-terrorism officers having to raid the home of a Brexit Party official to try to get to the origin of the leak. Such a move would risk a political furore.

One well-placed source said: “This inquiry is already so sensitive and Steve Edginton’s involvement complicates that.”

A senior government minister warned that raiding the Brexit Party was hugely problematic: “A political party’s computers would have to be seized. Nobody is going to do that.”

Mr Edginton broke his cover in an article for the The Mail on Sunday, the newspaper that first published details of Sir Kim’s diplomatic telegrams.

The messages, sent from the Washington embassy to the Foreign Office, described the Trump administration as “inept” and “utterly dysfunctional”.

The US president reacted furiously, branding Sir Kim a “pompous fool” before withdrawing a series of invitations to the White House. Sir Kim resigned a day after Boris Johnson refused to back him in a TV debate in the race to be the next Tory leader.

Mr Edginton said he feared he could be arrested for his role but declared: “I am not the leaker – I am a young journalist – but I did play a critical role.”