I was preparing to lose and I knew exactly what would happen if I did. The titles I would face, the accusation that I was – what my critics always claimed – a “conspiracy theorist”, the social media storm that would follow. I had no doubt about how destructive it would be because every step of this trial seemed like it was meant to crush me. To a large extent, he succeeded. The lawsuit was based on 24 words I used in a Ted Talk in 2019, but my story with Banks goes much further. The whole investigation that would reveal the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal started in 2016 with a series of denials from the company regarding its relationship with Leave.EU. This investigation led not only to fines against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg before Congress, but also to the findings that Banks’s Leave.EU campaign had violated both electoral and data laws. But it was our revelations in this article about his relationship with the Russian government that hit the nerves. The banks reported me to the police. He accused me of hacking a computer and then blackmailing. And a year later, he filed a lawsuit. “I’re not even going to go into the lies that Arron Banks told about his covert relationship with the Russian government,” he said. I thought the meaning of these words was dazzlingly obvious. That he had lied about his covert relationship with the Russian government! I was wrong. In November 2019, as part of the hearing to determine the “legal” meaning of the words I had used, Judge Saini came up with his wording, not what I thought the words meant; not even what the Banks had gone through. . He asserted that his confession had been obtained through torture and that his confession had been obtained through torture. The judge’s decision meant that I was going to stand trial to defend the truth of the words I had never said I felt like I was in the pages of a Kafka novel. The judge’s decision meant that I was going to stand trial to defend the truth of a statement I had never said or meant. When the news broke that I had withdrawn from defending the truth and would instead defend it only in the public interest, the right-wing media system collapsed. A tsunami of insulting articles, tweets, statements from commentators and MPs, the low point of which was when the president of the Orwell Prize called me to say that of course they would not ask me for the prize back as the Viewer demanded. but they had taken it seriously enough to get legal advice. I do not know if it was because these slanders were leveled against me or if our entire press had remained silent in the face of Banks’ legal threats, but the almost absolute silence surrounding this case was one of its most unusual aspects. One month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as part of legal action, documents leaked by both me and Banks provided a new perspective on the relationship between the biggest financier of the Brexit campaign and the Kremlin in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit. pounds against a journalist that 19 organizations said they believed was an abuse of the law. Many of them were not mentioned at all. Apart from the Guardian, not a single major news outlet covered any of them. I am writing this today because the law needs to change. We can not and should not allow another journalist to go through this. Not for the sake of their logic but for the health of our democracy. Because this is not democracy. It is an oligarchy. And Banks v Cadwalladr must be the last time these obscene laws are used against a journalist in this way. What this case proves is that no journalist is safe. The judge, Justice Steyn, said that Banks’s case against me was not a ‘Slapp’ action, that is, a strategic action against public participation. He said that his attempt to seek redress through the proceedings against me was lawful. He is right because he could not be. There is no definition of Slapp in UK law, so none of what I think are the abusive aspects of this case has been included in the evidence. They were not part of my defense, one of the things I found most upsetting after the trial. However, the judge made it clear in her ruling that the Observer had previously published a report that contained “substantially the same allegations and a very similar meaning”. But Banks did not sue the Observer and he did not sue Ted, he sued me. He probably thought I was the weakest link. He made a mistake. But only because an incredible sea of ​​people rose up to support me. I relied on the generosity of my legal team and the kindness of strangers: 28,887 people who contributed the staggering 8 819,835 to my two crowdfunders. Even the writing that makes me cry. The Kremlin’s reference capacity for leading Brexit campaign would have been stifled forever It would be completely impossible for me to defend myself without this support. It was hardly possible even with that. But if I had not done so, some key elements of the political moment that changed our country forever – Brexit – could have been rewritten. The possibility of reporting on the Kremlin’s participation in the Brexit campaign would have been stifled forever. The record could have changed. This is due to the fact that what the cover of the case lost last week, and what ordinary readers of the decision will probably not understand, is how excellent a document it is. Not only for what it means for all the British news agencies to succeed in defending the public interest, but also for the forensic examination of the facts of Banks’s relationship with the Russian government, which is on file forever. I was surprised reading it. Justice Steyn struggled with her own examination of Banks’ assertion that “his only involvement with the Russians was a delicious six-hour meal.” This was claimed after the Electoral Commission announced that it would investigate the “true source” of the 8 8 million donation for the Brexit campaign. And that’s what he found. That statement was, he said, “completely inaccurate.” He examined all the underlying documents, including the evidence recently uncovered in the case, and concluded that he “had at least four meetings, including three meals”. He added: “It would be wrong to expect a journalist to avoid acknowledging such an inaccurate statement; it is a lie.” But it does not end there. He noted: “The four meetings on November 6, 2015, November 17, 2015, August 19, 2016 and November 18, 2016 probably did not have full scope [of] “Banks’s meetings with Russian officials.” There were good reasons to believe that many other meetings took place. He considers that Banks’ words in an email on January 19, 2016 that he intended to “go and see the ambassador as well” were “indicative of a relationship in which he could easily visit the Russian ambassador.” He was quoted as saying by Andy Wigmore, a spokesman for the Leave.EU campaign and a business partner of Banks, as to why he had withdrawn his claim that Banks was in Moscow in early 2016 as “unreliable”. Nor is Banks’ claim that he received a document entitled “A game to consolidate the Russian gold sector” from a British collaborator and not from a Russian oligarch. The Boris Johnson government came to power in a Brexit coat. It has refused to investigate Russia’s ongoing attacks on Western democracies and our intelligence systems. Johnson personally intervened to delay the publication of the report of the Committee on Information and Security on Russia. He continues to deny his request for an investigation. The only information we have about Russia’s efforts comes from American investigators and a handful of journalists. And now this crisis. The personal, physical, psychological and professional cost of fighting this case was profound. But it is not my victory, it belongs to the legal team and the 28,887 people who stood by me. Banks could still decide to appeal Justice Steyn’s interpretation of the law. But not the facts. Whatever happens next, we have it now. We kept the line. There have been at least four meetings between the main sponsor of the Brexit campaign and the Russian government. There are good reasons to believe that there were many more. Fact.