The Londoner: Brexit Party chair Richard Tice warns Femi: I’ll sue

Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice is threatening to sue anti-Brexit campaigner Femi Oluwole over a series of tweets Oluwole sent last Friday. The Londoner understands that Oluwole was asked on Saturday to delete his tweets alleging that Tice had made anti-Semitic remarks and issue an apology.

Oluwole was also asked to pay Tice’s legal costs and donate £10,000 to a charity of Tice’s choice. In response, Oluwole, who founded campaign group Our Future Our Choice (OFOC), has hired the media lawyer David Price QC on a pro bono basis and tells The Londoner: “I will not stop calling out Leave.EU’s flagrant anti-Semitism.”

Oluwole asked in a tweet last Friday: “How have we allowed the Brexit Party to be seen as a tolerant party when its chairman, Richard Tice, founded an overtly anti-Jewish organisation?” He was quoting an October 2018 tweet from Leave.EU, which Tice co-founded with Arron Banks in July 2015, showing a doctored photo of the Jewish businessman George Soros holding puppet strings above Tony Blair. Leave.EU captioned it: “The face of the People’s Vote campaign”. But The Londoner understands that Tice claims he left Leave.EU in June 2016 and also that the photograph is simply a picture of two men who oppose Brexit.

There are thought to be two other tweets sent by Oluwole that have caused Tice to instruct lawyers from Wedlake Bell to threaten legal action. Tice told The Londoner there was “no substance to the allegations whatsoever” and added that a “substantial and significant claim is being prepared by our lawyers and counsel and will be issued in short due course”. This morning a source in OFOC told The Londoner they considered the Leave.EU tweet of Soros as a puppeteer “as anti-Semitic a trope as you can get”.

They explained: “If Femi loses he will go bankrupt. He’s fully aware of that.” They also said they thought the chances of the matter going to court were “50/50”. “They [Tice’s lawyers] threatened that if he didn’t take the tweet down they’d start proceedings on Monday. It’s Tuesday, have they started proceedings yet? No. A classic Brexiteer threat.”

Pariah to messiah

Rory Stewart says Jeremy Corbyn is a “remarkable man” and that the Labour leader was disrespected by his party when he was a backbencher.

Of his own early days in Parliament, Stewart says of Corbyn: “I remember thinking that Labour MPs were very rude to him.”

Stewart added to James O’Brien’s podcast that “when he stood up to speak the front bench would turn round, they’d walk out of the chamber, they’d shout at him. It was extraordinary to go from somebody who I felt they’re not being very respectful to him then being leader of the party.”

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Alastair Campbell sees history repeating itself in disturbing ways. “I’m reading this book about the Third Reich and can’t put it down,” he told an Australian TV news channel yesterday. “On every page you feel the resonance. So that thing [Trump] did the other day with the four congresswomen of colour — Hitler was doing that stuff.”

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CCHQ got a little overexcited last night, accidentally sharing a press release declaring the new prime minister 12 hours prematurely. Luckily, there were no spoiler alerts: the announcement was a dummy, with XXXXs and YYYYs where the names and numbers were supposed to be. Smooth.

Cara’s Carnival caper on the Californian coast

Cara Delevingne was in San Diego yesterday promoting her new show Carnival Row, co-starring Orlando Bloom, which airs on Netflix at the end of August.

Also in the Californian city was Jameela Jamil, who bid farewell to her fans at Comic-Con as she and the cast of The Good Place start filming their finale up the coast in Los Angeles next week.

Closer to home, comedian Aisling Bea was hiding from the glorious weather in London after having laser eye surgery, and author Candice Carty-Williams, the author of summer smash-hit Queenie, celebrated hitting 30 — though couldn’t stay out for too long as she had an early shoot in Peckham this morning. Meanwhile, Jamie Oliver caught some surf with one of his children in tow in Cornwall.

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for radio presenters Nick Grimshaw and Greg James who begin a UK-wide game of Hide and Seek at 4pm. Silly season is in full swing...

SW1A

Congrats to Jo Swinson, who was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats yesterday. One journalist recalls a story about her: “During the expenses scandal, the Telegraph demanded to know why travel to and from her Scottish constituency rose dramatically in 2006. Swinson, then 29, told them: ‘I stopped being eligible for a Young Person’s Railcard.’”

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The Londoner asked Damian Green where he’s going on holiday. The Tory former Cabinet minister is heading to Tuscany for the summer to go “full-Blairite”. Though he added he’d move to Tuscany permanently if Corbyn and McDonnell came to power.

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A painting of Margaret Thatcher was seen being carried through Whitehall yesterday — seemingly away from No 10. A Boris-backing MP told The Londoner: “We can’t start quoting Thatcher. We’re about the future not the past.”

Tess’s podcast recipe — just add laughs

Tess Ward was at the Groucho’s Edinburgh preview last night on the hunt for new comedy talent to join her on her podcast Down the Rabbit Hole. The podcast “burrows in on the weird, wonderful, sexual, spiritual and supernatural”. But why is the Cordon Bleu-trained chef looking for comics? “I think the podcast needs more comedians because I’m talking about the patriarchy and millennial feminism,” she says. How should willing takers get in touch? “Just slide into my DMs with your best lines.”

Quote of the Day

‘I need to do my own groceries’

Naomi Campbell might have an estimated net worth of £45 million, but she’s still keeping it real