London: The British government failed to investigate whether Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum and a full intelligence inquiry must now take place, a panel of lawmakers said.
Members of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee accused ministers of deliberately avoiding the question because they did not want to know whether Russia had tried to interfere in the European Union referendum.
The government dismissed the findings and refused to authorize a retrospective investigation into the 2016 vote on European Union membership.
The recommendation for a full-scale review into Brexit is a key point in a long-delayed report on Russian involvement in British politics by the watchdog which oversees the work of the U.K. intelligence agencies.
It is a politically explosive subject and one that Prime Minister Boris Johnson will be reluctant to revisit. The aftermath of the referendum split the country, leading to years of turmoil and uncertainty for business and bringing down two prime ministers.
Johnson, who led the controversial pro-Brexit campaign, is now in charge and seeking to negotiate a future trade deal with the EU. He will want to avoid reopening the debate about the vote as he has pledged to move the country on from the past divisions over Brexit.
Hostile action
But the panel of politicians said a full inquiry — with findings made public — would be essential. “It is important to establish whether a hostile state took deliberate action with the aim of influencing a U.K. democratic process, irrespective of whether it was successful or not,” the ISC report said.
Members of the panel criticized the government for failing to try to establish what had happened sooner.
“The report reveals that no one in government knew if Russia interfered or sought to influence the referendum because they did not want to know,” Stewart Hosie, a Scottish Nationalist member of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee said in a briefing. “The committee found it astonishing that no one in government had sought beforehand to protect the referendum from such attempts or investigate afterwards what attempts to influence it there may have been.”
The study, which was delayed by nine months, threatens to further damage relations between London and Moscow, which have been in deep trouble since the 2018 Salisbury poisonings. Last week, the U.K. accused Russia of trying to interfere in the 2019 election and presented findings, backed by the U.S. and Canada, of Russian hackers’ attempts to steal coronavirus vaccine research.
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Damage Limitation
In its report, the ISC said Russia is so embedded in the British establishment that attempts to curb its influence are focused on damage limitation rather than prevention.
The committee found the British government has failed to tackle the threat to democracy from Russian interference.
The cross-party committee called for a full intelligence report on Russian attempts to influence the 2016 Brexit referendum along similar lines to investigations in the U.S. into meddling in its democracy. Some sections on the ISC report that deal with the Brexit vote were redacted.
In its response, Johnson’s government said it had so far seen nothing that warranted an inquiry into Brexit. “We have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU Referendum,” the government said in a written statement.
Ministers will always consider “new information” and how to use “any intelligence” they receive, the government said. “Given this long standing approach, a retrospective assessment of the EU Referendum is not necessary.”
The ISC report examines the sweeping extent of Russia’s involvement in British public life. It said the U.K. intelligence services were too focused on counter-terrorism and not enough on protecting democracy.
“Russian influence in the U.K. is ‘the new normal’, and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the U.K. business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth,” the report said. “This level of integration — in ‘Londongrad’ in particular — means that any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.”
Unfounded accusations
The Russian government dismissed report before it was published. It will contain “more unfounded accusations” against Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call earlier on Tuesday. “I hope that at least this time — after the rich experience of Britain’s allies with investigations of interference, which later led to negative results and didn’t confirm anything — at least that there’ll be some documents devoid of unfounded accusations and insinuations.”
“Russia has never interfered in the electoral processes of any country in the world: not in the United States, not in the United Kingdom, nor in other countries,” Peskov said. “We don’t do this ourselves and we don’t tolerate it when other countries try to interfere in our political affairs.”
Many in the intelligence community regard the findings as already out of date. Yet Johnson, who said last year he had read the document, dragged his feet over its publication, only agreeing the nomination of new members for the committee needed to publish it earlier this month.
“The U.K. is clearly a target for Russia’s disinformation campaigns and political influence operation,” the report said. “Its lack of democracy and rule of law allows its intelligence agencies to act quickly, without constraint or consideration.”
The prime minister’s eventual efforts to reconvene the cross-party panel with a friendly chairman were embarrassingly thwarted last week, when members voted for Conservative MP Julian Lewis, instead of former Transport Secretary Chris Grayling. Lewis was promptly kicked out of the Party for standing against Johnson’s chosen candidate.- Bloomberg
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