Lib Dem Official Used Anonymous X Account to Discredit Rivals in Key Battleground Seat

The Liberal Democrats have been accused of using an anonymous social media account run by a party official in an attempt to discredit their rivals in a key battleground seat, Byline Times can reveal.

Wimbledon is number three on the Lib Dem list of target seats in the forthcoming general election, having come within 650 votes in 2019 due to tactical voting, and the party’s leader Ed Davey last week visited to campaign hoping to help its candidate Paul Kohler into parliament.

But behind the scenes, an investigation by this newspaper has uncovered evidence that an account on X, formerly Twitter, which makes regular attacks on the Conservative and Labour candidates in Wimbledon, is run by former Lib Dem council candidate and prominent activist Barry Smith.

Smith, a close associate of Mr Kohler and whose partner is also a serving party councillor alongside Kohler on Merton Council, is a ward coordinator in the Abbey Wood district of Merton, and is listed as a contact on the party’s pages.

Outgoing Tory MP Stephen Hammond, who has regularly faced personal attacks from the account @HammondWatch, said: “Set up days after the 2019 [General Election], I’ve often pondered who’s behind @HammondWatch, a page immediately followed by Paul Kohler [which] has consistently hounded and trolled me [and] been dedicated to making false accusations and slurs on my integrity. 

“It is run by Barry Smith, a friend of Paul Kohler, partner of a Lib Dem Councillor, and [a] committed Lib Dem activist [and] former candidate.

“This is the ugly face of Wimbledon’s Liberal Democrats. I await an apology from Mr Smith, and confirmation he has been thrown out of the Lib Dem party.”

Last night a spokesman for the Lib Dems said: “We refute any claim that this Twitter account is an official account of either the Party centrally or locally.”

---

When they go low, we go high

Kohler, who nearly won in 2019 and is a member of Merton Council, has often talked on social media of the importance of respectful, positive politics, and once quoted Michelle Obama’s famous phrase, “When they go low, we go high.”

He has in the past been critical of anonymous X accounts, calling them “cowardly”, and has previously called on a political opponent to disown supporters who engage in online abuse. 

Yet our investigation has found numerous examples where the HammondWatch account, originally set up to attack Mr Hammond, the Conservative MP for Wimbledon since 2005, has been anything but, and is prolific in doing so.

The account once accused Hammond of being a hypocrite seven times in one week. 

It has also described him as a “supporter of genocide”, and a “spineless sycophant”.  

Since the former junior transport minister announced he was standing down last September, the account has switched to promoting the Lib Dems – including amplifying Kohler’s posts – while attacking the candidates for the Conservatives, Danielle Dunfield-Prayero, and Labour, Eleanor Stringer.

While there is no suggestion Kohler has personally used the account himself, he has been aware of its presence since it was first set up on 17 December 2019, five days after the previous general election.

Its first post was at 17.39, with its third post, at 18.02 the same day, quote-tweeting Kohler. Sixteen minutes later, Kohler promoted the account saying: “I don’t know who is behind @HammondWatch but [it is] worth checking out…”

Suggesting Kohler was aware of how damaging it would be for a Lib Dem candidate to be operating an account like this, in June 2020 he repeatedly challenged former Merton Council Conservative leader Richard Hilton, who had hinted he might have been operating the account.

On the same day, also in reply to Mr Hilton’s suggestion, the HammondWatch account wrote, “I can assure you I’m not Paul, or indeed any Merton councillor”, while acknowledging that it “would be a breach of the rules for any sitting councillor” to use social media to attack political opponents. 

---

How Byline Times Solved the Riddle

In an attempt to uncover exactly who was behind the HammondWatch account, our investigators studied its output stretching back to its creation.

The first clue was the precise and simple but aggressive and direct wording and punctuation it used. The account often uses the phrase (hint:) in brackets and with a colon. It also always spells “no one” with a hyphen (“no-one”).

Our investigators then searched for unusual phrases which were common to both accounts. 

HammondWatch has often posted about a perceived lack of action over what Baroness Sayeeda Warsi called the Tory party’s “toxic, mad fascists.”

It described Ms Stringer, Labour’s candidate for the forthcoming general election and the current deputy leader of Merton Council, as a “paper candidate.” 

It also claimed that Labour “abandons Wimbledon” – which was the only use of that exact phrase on Twitter since July last year.

And, of the estimated 76 billion tweets posted from 1 Jan to 31 May this year, just eight featured the phrase “performative brutality.” 

Those eight tweets came from just six accounts. One was by HammondWatch. 

Another was by Smith, a local Lib Dem ward organiser, twice defeated council candidate and the partner of sitting Lib Dem councillor, Klaar Dresselaers.

Like Baroness Warsi, Smith – who contested the 2018 and 2022 council elections for the Lib Dems, losing to Eleanor Stringer in 2018, and who in 2022 missed out on being elected by just nine votes – has tweeted his concerns about “toxic” rhetoric in the Tory party.

He, too, has tweeted his belief that Labour’s Stringer is a “paper” candidate.

He also claimed the party has “abandoned Wimbledon”, which is the only use of that exact phrase on X not in relation to football since July 2023. (The phrase is regularly used in the on-going dispute between AFC Wimbledon and MK Dons fans about the circumstances of Wimbledon’s move to Milton Keynes in the early 2000s.)

Smith – who is regularly photographed canvassing for the Lib Dems locally and nationally, including with Kohler who sits on Merton Council alongside Smith’s partner – also shares his writing style with HammondWatch, often using the phrases “(hint:)” and “no-one”.

One of our investigators put the allegation to HammondWatch, along with questions about whether anyone else in the party knew who operated the account and whether they felt they felt the content of its posts was appropriate, via X.

The account replied: “The Lib Dems have absolutely no control over this account. No-one (sic) in the Lib Dems gets to choose what does or doesn’t go on this account.

“While I am a Lib Dem…this is a private account and there is absolutely no control by the Lib Dem organisation or anyone else in the party over it.”

Both HammondWatch and Smith’s personal account then blocked our investigator from viewing their X posts.

When contacted for comment on his official Lib Dems email account, Smith failed to reply, as did Kohler. If they do, we will update this story. A spokesman for the Lib Dems said: “We refute any claim that this Twitter account is an official account of either the Party centrally or locally.”

However, following our inquiries to the party on the evening of 3 June, HammondWatch announced the following morning that it would be suspended for the period of the General Election.

Martin Calladine is an author who runs the website theuglygame.wordpress.com. He is not a member of any political party, but his wife is a Labour Party member in Wimbledon.