THE man who exposed the Vote Leave campaign’s overspending has said Scotland should get out of the Union “as soon as you can” because the UK Government “hate the Scottish”.

Former Vote Leave volunteer Shahmir Sanni has been a vocal critic of the Tory Government since his role in exposing one of the UK’s biggest electoral scandals back in 2018.

Now, speaking to the Not Another Fake News Cast podcast, the whistleblower says he is “totally pro-independence” since his experience.

Sanni told Gerry and Paul: “I’m totally pro-independence. I am totally pro-independence. They (the Government) hate the Scottish.

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“This is what a lot of people don’t understand - they genuinely, genuinely do not like Scotland. The whole idea of Scotland they don’t like, and this is something I never understood because I grew up in Pakistan.

“The way that they would talk about the Welsh and the Scottish … You really should seek independence - because they hate you.

“Get out as soon as you can.”

He can be heard making the comments towards the end of the podcast.

Sanni was thrust into the limelight back in March 2018 one week after the Observer newspaper published Christopher Wylie’s explosive Cambridge Analytica revelations.

After Wylie broke the story of how the data analytics firm connected to the Brexit campaign and Donald Trump’s election team harvested data from millions of US-based Facebook accounts, Sanni revealed Vote Leave broke the law during the Brexit referendum by exceeding legal spending limits.

After he came forward with the story, Sanni’s was forced to come out to his family when national organiser for Vote Leave Stephen Parkinson issued a statement, which Dominic Cummings then published on his blog, revealing that Parkinson had been in a relationship with the volunteer.

At the time Sanni’s family, some of whom are based in Pakistan where people can be killed for homosexuality, were unaware of his sexuality. Cummings later deleted the post but the damage had been done – his aunt and uncle learned about his sexuality when they were approached by a Mail on Sunday journalist.

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Speaking on the podcast, Sanni was asked about the experience. He said: “It’s still something that I kind of have to take a big breath before I talk about because it was such a whirlwind. It wasn’t just me being outed it was me being fired a few weeks later then me having to deal with whatever comes with a whistleblower, particularly whistleblower against two future prime ministers and two future Cabinets and all the advisers of the last two Conservative governments and one Conservative government before that.

“So for me that was the most personal trauma that I faced in whistleblowing and I think there were so many different attacks coming at me that I don’t think I’ve even yet come to terms or understand how that impacted me.”

In the wide-ranging interview Sanni discusses his dismissal from the TaxPayer’s Alliance, the initial and long-term backlash to his whistleblowing, how racism and homophobia played into his experience and much more.