I was shocked by the brutal language from a supposedly impartial diplomat. “In it, Sir Kim branded Trump’s White House ‘inept’ and ‘utterly dysfunctional’. He said he has spoken to a “large number of Whitehall sources” over seven months from as part of his investigation – “on my own initiative” – into the Civil Service’s readiness for Brexit.įrom this he claimed to have provided exclusive stories to The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Sun online and The Mail on Sunday.Įdington added: “But last month, my investigation took an extraordinary turn when a trusted source read out to me an astonishing letter written by Sir Kim in June 2017 to Sir Mark Sedwill, Britain’s national security adviser. He also denied the leak had any connection to the Brexit Party. “Instead, it was simply an honest journalistic endeavour.” “I am sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists but this was not a Brexiteer plot to topple Sir Kim, nor was it some devilish scheme to torpedo the independence of the Civil Service by installing a political appointee in Washington,” he said. He described himself as a “19-year-old freelance journalist with a passion for politics” who was “looking for a big project through which to develop my career” in his first-hand account published in the Mail on Sunday. Prior to that he was a video journalist for right-leaning political website Westmonster. The GCHQ spy agency is in Cheltenham.”Įdington has previously worked for pro-Brexit campaign Leave Means Leave and The Taxpayers’ Alliance. He added: “One of her research assistants detected that his Snapchat account had been repeatedly accessed from a location near Gloucester. He also said Oakeshott believes she has evidence of state surveillance. It is not hard, however, to see shadows everywhere when you know that police have ordered counter-terrorism specialists to arrest your source.” “Was it the security services? Am I being followed? I will probably never know. He said he believed a man was taking pictures of him while he ate lunch last week. Edginton said he has “been looking over my shoulder and on edge with anxiety” since the cables were published on 7 July.

Look over the shoulder at party