A BREXIT PARTY MEP has admitted she previously worked for the parent company of the controversial communications firm Cambridge Analytica in Kenya during election time.
Alexandra Phillips, a member of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, confirmed her role with British firm Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) to Channel 4 News after initially denying any involvement with the company.
Cambridge Analytica came under fire in 2018 after it allegedly misused millions of Facebook users’ personal data to help them design software to predict and influence voters’ choices at the ballot box.
An affiliate of SCL, Cambridge Analytica has offices in London, New York, Washington, as well as Brazil and Malaysia.
Globally, Cambridge Analytica said it has worked in Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Colombia and Indonesia.
When initially interviewed by Channel 4 News, Phillips adamantly denied involvement with Cambridge Analytica. She did confirm that she worked in Kenya during the elections.
“I didn’t work for them. At all. That’s libellous – you can’t put this online, my friend,” Phillips said.
She added: “I’m being very serious now. You’re actually propagating a load of misinformation that’s been put online.”
She continued: “If you want to talk about the Cambridge Analytica campaign, speak to them, not me. I don’t know them. I really don’t know the people.”
Channel 4 then obtained a recording of an interview form 2017 in which Phillips confirmed she had been in a contract with Cambridge Analytica.
She said:
I’ve not been able to speak to you because I’ve been under my contract which finished yesterday. So now I’m able to talk. But whilst I’m under contract with Cambridge Analytica, if they’d found that I’d spoken to a journalist about them, then, you know what I mean non-disclosure agreements and all the rest of it. I wasn’t working for Jubilee I was employed by Cambridge Analytica who had the contract with Jubilee.
Phillips said she worked as a political communications consultant for the Kenya project.
She said she was “writing the president’s speeches and his talking points for rallies and State House statements”.
“I trained their communications team – they’re all sort of journalists who came together to create a press office. So I had to train them up and daily management of that communications team,” she said.
Admission
In a statement to Channel 4 News on Monday, Phillips admitted to working for SCL.
“In Kenya, I worked as a freelance contractor — focusing on speechwriting – with the team of President Kenyatta, who is a great ally of the UK. The campaigns I worked on promoted peace and national unity in a country that I love dearly,” Phillips said.
“This work was sub-contracted out to me by SCL, which went on to become a different company. Out of respect for those whom I served, I will continue to respect the confidentiality agreements that I signed upon accepting the role in Kenya.
“And I will not be bullied by agenda-driven, guilt-by-association reporting.”
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