Comment on the Epstein files has naturally focused on the more salacious details, and to a lesser extent, the evidence of political corruption. But analysis by the political commentator, Rob Groves, shows that they also tell us a lot about Brexit. He has used the Epstein files to follow the money, the data operations, the propaganda pipelines, and the elite social networks of which Epstein was an integral part. They show that Brexit was not the will of the people but the will of the rich and powerful – Putin, Trump, the autocrats, the billionaire oligarchs, the libertarians and Farage.

The files show that Brexit was the outcome and instrument of a transnational network of oligarchs, data‑operations firms and authoritarian‑leaning actors. All stood to profit from destabilisation, low regulation, and weak democratic checks. A decade after the referendum, Brexit is still actively harming the UK’s economy, culture, security and international standing, and each new tranche of files clarifies how that vote sat in a wider ecosystem of anti‑EU nationalism, dark‑money politics and data‑driven voter manipulation.

The revolt of the powerful

The Epstein files show that Brexit was never a “plucky British revolt”. In reality, Brexit was fed, and empowered, by an entire class of oligarchs and autocrats, who thrive on chaos, weak regulation and brittle institutions. We see Epstein celebrating Brexit, as a return to “tribalism” in messages to Peter Thiel, the South African‑born co‑founder of Palantir and PayPal. He is an archetypal tech oligarch, aligned with Donald Trump and fellow billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman. Their shared worldview sees democracy as messy, regulation as an irritant, and the state as something to be re‑engineered to serve “winners” in defence‑adjacent technology, social media and AI.

All this is built on mass data extraction and opaque influence over governments. Yes, the files show rich, connected people combining to tolerate or conceal abuse of young women, but, they also reveal a British cabinet minister texting government secrets to Epstein, in a global network routinely trading access, information and opportunities.

Brexit: the proving ground

Groves suggests that Brexit was an early proving ground for the nationalist politics later deployed in Trump’s America. Palantir’s controversial UK public sector and NHS‑related contracts symbolise the creep of unaccountable data power into the heart of the state. And, around this, sits a US‑led media and political constellation – Breitbart, Steve Bannon, J D Vance, MAGA, the Heritage Foundation, and Tufton Street groups.

The Russian factor

Groves condemns the UK state’s failure to respond to the threat from Russia. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report did not conclusively prove Russian interference in Brexit – not because there was no evidence, but because government and security agencies were afraid of seeming to meddle in politics. When they chose not to investigate interference around the referendum and Scottish independence, they could hide behind the line that there was “no evidence”.

Had they seriously looked, they might have found Nathan Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, now convicted of accepting money to deliver pro-Russian scripted lines in the European Parliament. He was part of a wider culture where politics is seen as a tool for personal gain. And a key player in this ecosystem is Nigel Farage. He is the link between British grievance politics and this international project: anti‑EU, anti‑human‑rights and anti‑regulation, yet relaxed about murky funding so long as it benefits the far right. A fragmented and toothless EU is precisely the outcome Putin wanted, and Farage helped deliver.

Convergence, not conspiracy

But this is not an organised conspiracy. There is no single mastermind. What there is, is a common agenda for tech oligarchs and autocrats along with racists, nostalgists, deregulators, tax avoiders, foreign influence operations and political charlatans. All stand to benefit from low taxes, low regulation, culture wars and impunity for donors and insiders. The models are Hungary, Turkey, Argentina, Belarus, Russia, and Trump’s United States, with captured courts, cowed media, politicised policing and corruption masked as patriotism. Each group has its own agenda, but all converge on a weaker, poorer, more isolated Britain. And the very anarchy which they provoke feeds the anger, division and distrust with politics that Reform UK feeds off.

What next?

Groves argues that genuine security, stability, and sovereignty requires moving closer to Europe and consciously distancing the UK from Trump’s America and predatory tech oligarchs. He calls for a comprehensive overhaul of rules on political finance and influence, highlighting opaque, foreign‑linked money around Reform UK as an existential threat to democracy.

But the very networks he describes exist to prevent this happening, and this government has proved nervous of serious major moves on these issues. If Keir Starmer, with an albeit tarnished reputation as an honest public servant committed to overthrowing corruption, is not able or willing to tackle this, are we confident that someone else could to it?

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