In the case of the poisoning of Sergej Skripal and his daughter, I believe we are witnessing a cunningly and deceitful game played by the British establishment, which has a different objective in mind than "bringing Russia/Putin to justice" and protect exile Russians from attacks by the Russian government. Or whatever they tell you about it in the Mainstream Media.

Overall, I have a high opinion of the Fleet Street (=mainstream) media. The competition is tough and when it comes to domestic issues, they tend to be spot on. If you ignore the entertainment part (which they make their money with), you will find that on real political and social issues, they are fast and relentless, and they deliver quality and truth in a way I as a German can only dream of our media possibly being capable of delivering the same as they do.

Especially, since "political correctness" has been given up by the non-left part of the press and the controversy before and during the Brexit referendum - at least one major news outlet openly supported Brexit - you can see, that there is some serious reporting going on in the private sector of the British media market.

There is only one area, where you can't trust the British press and that is when it comes to foreign policy. In this field of reporting, they are completely in the pocket of the British Deep State and they reliably report government propaganda instead of the news. I imagine, there could be due to a deal where they get hot domestic information by the secret services in exchange for a "preferable" reporting on foreign issues.

And I am sure, this is also the case in the murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter.

There are enough plot holes that you can safely assume that the Russia/Putin scenario has a likelihood of maybe 10%

Since a few weeks, the entire British media is going crazy about Putin himself - not just evil Russia - ordering the poisoning of this former Russian double agent and his daughter. In case you follow the world news a bit, you have surely heard about it.

Every newspaper from yellow press to left-liberal to conservative reports about the Skripal day in, day out. There are photos, storylines and cartoons everywhere and they all tell you: It's not bad, it is worse! The foreign secretary Boris Johnson even claimed that Putin had ordered the two murders himself. Just as if it was normal for someone like him to be able to know that with certainty.

So far, I have only found one article in The Spectator that was arguing against Russia/Putin being the perpetrator. Besides Jeremy Corbyn, the notorious Leninist (or Maoist?) head of the Labour Party, this was the only opposition to the allegations against Russia/Putin. Even Corbyns comrades condemned him for his speech about his doubts about the case in Parliament. I'm not much of a fan of Corbyn - and yes, he probably definitively was a Communist spy - but it was actually quite brave of him to stand up and express those doubts. Not to speak of the fact that todays Russia is a lot but surely not Communist. So, not much to win for comrade Jeremy here anyway.

If you ignore the shouting and finger pointing, but only look at the hard facts, you can see that Russia can't have much of an interest in committing such a crime. Russia/Putin is trying to present itself as a rational and reliable global player and Putin was never known for doing things out of anger (over defection in this case), but has a record of playing his hands tight aggressively and never to lose his self-control.

There is also the nagging question, what Russia could have aimed for in poisoning an old, retired man who doesn't pose a threat to Russian interests. At least not an imminent threat, which surely also counted for his daughter, who got poisoned with him. In fact, all the pictures of the two murdered show them holding glasses of wine and having a good time (every time in front of a differently nice and relaxed setting). My impression is that they were simply enjoying their personal life and were not active operatives who aimed to destroy Putins corrupted empire.

On top comes the way of doing this. There are a lot of "elegant" ways, to get rid of a person completely without anyone suspecting you for having done it. And the best way of doing it is to frame somebody else. A technique the Russian secret service surely is capable of applying reliably. That's why the usage of a Russian poison is more of a sign that in fact the Russians/Putin were the ones who were framed.

Clearly, this whole show is aiming for something else, but for what?

Britain is not strong enough to harm Russia in any relevant way as a consequence of this crisis. Not even on the level of the military, the UK is capable of getting Russia to do more than to shrug its shoulders. And besides that, it is very doubtful that a war could possibly be the result of something like this. In rare cases this can happen, think about the murder of Franz Ferdinand of Habsburg, but even North Korea poisoning a Kim family member in a foreign country not too long ago hasn't resulted in anything. A bit sabre rattling, some serious diplomatic chatting and then it simply blew over.

Even if there was watertight proof with for example an audio tape on which Putin can be heard laughing and saying "harr, harr, then poison them with this substance. I really like that idea," the consequence would be not much more than more sanctions against Russia and perhaps a UN resolution (vetoed by Russia..).

These sanctions then would be coming from the side of Britain as well as - and here things are getting interesting - by all British allies. That means: NATO, the USA and several Commonwealth nations.

The point is, British imports to Russia are rather small. The country isn't even in the top ranks of import nations to Russia. Sanctions would not really have negative effect on the British economy which also counts for Russian exports to Britain (which is mainly gas and Britain needs that).

But then again, the UK can directly leverage the economic trading power of almost the entire developed world. With Germany, the United States, Italy and France, British allies are importing products and services worth more than 80 Billion US-$ to Russia every year. And not much less comes back from Russia in the form of natural resources, vodka and borscht.

Of course, the sanctions against Russia for its "aggression in Syria" have left a big hole in the trading balance with the country, but it still is a very big business. Given the German and Italian dependency on Russian gas, most Russian exports can't be stopped, but the imports from those countries help the Russian economy a lot in terms of productivity gains. You can cut that more and hurt the Russian bear for poisoning its citizens in Britain in this way. Or: That is what they will probably tell you. It's not wrong but also not really correct.

The point is: Further sanctions wouldn't hurt Britain at all, but it's main allies a lot.

My theory is that this whole Russia/Putin poison plot has no other reason, but to weaken the economies of the British allies on the European continent. Namely Germany, but also Italy and France. And the real reason I believe, is that the UK tries to get into a better negotiation position for the ongoing Brexit talks.

So far, the EU has an upper hand. Despite its trade-deficit, Britain needs the continent as market. Especially London is a major financial and trading hub for the continent and despite all stories claiming the opposite, Britain still has an export industry, which tries to sell its products to Germany, France and so on. With Brexit, all direct access points might be closed. The EU can charge extra tariffs, can lock-out British employees and services and demand the country to still apply to EU regulations and pay for access to its markets, despite - or because - Britain is leaving the EU.

In fact, Britain might end up having even less control over its domestic economic and financial policies than as a member of the hated Brussels club. Add to that a political establishment around Theresa May, Boris Johnson and others who are doing a really bad job. To me they all appear to be astonishingly incompetent. All this might lead to the UK ending up as another EU vassal as it is for example the Ukraine since the Soros coup.

But as mentioned, Germany still has a massive trade going with Russia. For France, Italy, the Netherlands and other exporting nations of the EU, Russia may be less important, but still is dominant in terms of percentage on their GDP. Their private sector didn't like the first sanctions against Russia and they definitively won't like the ones that might follow.

The idea is that the more these economies get hurt by shutting down their Russia trade, the less the EU as a whole can "hurt itself to hurt the UK", as Michel Barnier, one of the Brexit negotiators for the EU publicly stated some time ago.

I am convinced that this is the real reason for the current British frenzy about Putin/Russia. It's a simple game played to increase the British political and economic/financial negotiation position against the EU. And since the risk of the game is almost zero (who cares what Putin thinks about it or the population in Britain and elsewhere), it is played with as much verve as possible to fool the German government into sanctioning Russia more. And given the German political elite as I know it, they will definitively fall for it.

And yes, in this scenario, somebody from the British Deep State - or the City of London - brewed together the poison and killed the two Russians, not Putin. I give this scenario a 60% likelihood.

What do you think is the real reason for this Skripal case? Let me know in the comments! Best comment with 150+ characters will get a 1 SBD reward!!

Image Source: The Spectator