I popped down to @SODEMAction last night, on account the crucial votes.

There were some very odd people out and about in Westminster last night.

I don't mean just the MPs, or the yellow bellies, or even us. /1

I don't even mean the dozens of video camera people who follow the yellow bellies around filming every interaction they can between Leaver and Remainer.

Though TBH they are very odd indeed. (Who has organises them? Who trains them?)

But I don't mean specifically them. /2

I found myself chatting to a Leaver - not a yellow belly or a shouter or a placard waver - a decent enough chap, apparently open to reason.

Let's call him First Geezer.

So I was telling him that no lasting settlement or a lasting peace can be built on the Bent Vote of 2016. /3

And I was explaining to him that there was pretty clear evidence, in the public domain and accepted by those concerned, that Russia funded much of what happened. /4

I cited the fact that Banks is by far the largest donor to political campaigns in British history.

That there is no clear story of where his money came from.

That Banks and Wigmore invited the Russian ambassador to Leave EU HQ to watch the referendum night coverage. /5

That Banks and Farage were invited to the Russian embassy and offered sweetheart deals in gold and diamond mining concerns. /6

Anyway that's when the Weird Thing happened. /7

Somewhere round about this time a second individual turned up: polite, charming, very good English as second language, educated.

He asked very politely if he could observe our conversation.

One of the mystery cameramen either arrived with him or was already videoing us. /8

He started challenging my conclusions, challenged the idea that Russia was the enemy of the UK or the West or democracy.

He said that Russia was a democracy - he himself was Russian.

Let's call him Russian Geezer. /9

He seemed to be very good at needling little questions and turning conversations - at least in sixth form debating club kind of way.

He was very pleased that I couldn't remember the current name of Russian state security. /10

All of this raised my suspicions a little bit so I asked him directly how he came to be there, what his involvement was.

His story was that he had been innocently passing by - there was some business about his passport that had brought him there.

He wasn't entirely clear. /11

It then turned out rather strangely that First Geezer thought Russia was rather a fine country.
He thought that Russia was perfectly justified in occupying Eastern Europe after WW2. /12

First Geezer, it turned out, had been a communist for much of his life - and not one of those prissy middle class eco-communists - but a proper full-on tanky. /13

I'm not saying there is any definite reason not to believe Russian Geezer's story that he was simply an innocent abroad who had stumbled into an interesting situation and decided to investigate.

And maybe I'm a paranoid old hack with an overactive imagination.

Maybe not. /14

What has happened in recent weeks with the yellow bellies and the strange little street actions that pop up from nowhere is a little reminiscent of the way Vladimir Surkov used to conjure movements out of thin air. /15

Now if Surkov or one of his proteges was bold enough to put actual Russian boots on the ground maybe they would look a lot like Russian Geezer. /16

Now, you might say if Russia was working closely to support Leaver activist groups they would be a lot more secretive and clever.

Well maybe. But then again consider how little effort Skripal's would-be assassins took to cover their tracks.

Or Litvinenko's. / 17

They feel they can operate with impunity on British soil and they're happy to flaunt it. /18

Or, as I say, it could all just be my crazy imagination.

All the same I do hope someone cleverer and more determined than me is looking into this stuff.

@carolecadwalla - care to take a squizz? /e