The prime minister has said he was told that Russia interfered in the 2016 EU referendum, reviving a dispute that had largely faded as the UK settled into life outside the bloc.
Speaking in excerpts from an interview with The Rest is Politics released on Sunday, Andy Burnham said he had put the question directly on arriving in Downing Street.
“I asked the question coming to Downing Street: ‘Was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia?’ And I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was,” he said.
He did not identify whom he had asked, nor spell out what the answer contained. The remarks nonetheless imply he received some form of new information, before he moved on to discuss Russian disinformation more broadly.
“These things are important now to put clearly on the record, and I believe, help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely Russia,” he said.
Two possible explanations
One reading is that the prime minister was briefed on a recent assessment by UK intelligence agencies. Another is that the exchange was a fairly informal conversation with officials in which views were traded.
The distinction carries weight, because a fresh assessment would conflict with the position taken by successive Conservative governments after the referendum.
Appearing in the Commons later on Monday, Burnham offered no additional detail, saying: “It is a matter of record that Russia has sought to interfere in elections, the 2019 general election, and we think it is inconceivable that this was the first time.”
No official investigation in 2016
No serious official inquiry was mounted into possible Russian interference in 2016, largely because the Conservatives had no appetite to order one. As the years passed, launching such an inquiry became steadily harder.
Parliament’s cross-party intelligence and security committee addressed the subject in its Russia report, published in July 2020. The committee took secret evidence from UK intelligence agencies before releasing a partially redacted document.
It found the government “had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes”. The committee added that no formal post-referendum assessment had been carried out, and accused the UK intelligence community of having taken its “eye off the ball” on the Russian threat.
Three strands to the controversy
The first involves a “troll army” of state-linked Russian accounts that tweeted about the referendum before the vote, with estimates of their number ranging enormously from 54 to 150,000, many of which were subsequently deleted.
The second concerns the Russian English-language outlets RT and Sputnik, which published substantial volumes of anti-EU and pro-Brexit material that reached a wide audience. The digital campaign group 89up said the two broadcasters published 261 articles that generated 134m potential page impressions.
The third strand covers claims that Arron Banks, a donor to the pro-Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, had links to Russia. Leaked emails showed he met Alexander Yakovenko, then Russian ambassador to the UK, three times — a figure Banks later revised up to four — and that he was offered the chance to take part in a goldmining deal in Russia.
A subsequent National Crime Agency investigation into £8m of loans Banks provided to Brexit campaigns run by Farage concluded the money was legitimately his and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Debate over decisive influence
The EU referendum was also a complicated and tightly contested campaign in which numerous viewpoints were in play. Whether a single country with an interest in weakening both the UK and the EU could have decisively influenced a vote cast by 33.5 million people is a matter of debate.
The prime minister is advancing a wider argument that Britain must reconsider its relationship with the EU, contending that Brexit has not delivered what was promised. Drawing attention to possible Russian attempts to interfere raises questions about the result, although Downing Street insisted on Monday that it regarded the outcome as legitimate.
Burnham has additionally proposed establishing a National Centre for Information Defence to detect, attribute and disrupt disinformation originating overseas — and his comments on Russian interference appear to have been intended to support that case.
In the Commons, however, Burnham was careful to narrow his remarks. He stressed that he had not claimed Russia altered the referendum result, only that the Kremlin had tried to interfere. With little fresh material to support his initial statements, the prime minister risks facing accusations of exaggeration.
COMMENTS