Prime Minister Burnham says Russia interfered in Brexit — The Guardian

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he had received confirmation of attempts by Russia — an aggressor state — to interfere in the 2016 referendum on the country’s withdrawal from the EU. According to him, after arriving at Downing Street, he asked whether Moscow had tried to influence the vote and received an affirmative answer.

As The Guardian reports, Burnham made the statement on The Rest is Politics podcast. He did not name the person who gave him this assessment, disclose the evidence on which it was based, or say whether such actions affected the referendum’s outcome.

Parliamentary committee findings

In 2020, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee criticized the government and intelligence services for failing to properly investigate possible Russian interference in the referendum. The cross-party committee said that ministers had not commissioned a full assessment of Moscow’s actions, despite evidence of attempts to influence British politics through Russian state-backed media and social media accounts.

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The committee also noted that the government had not provided an assessment of possible interference attempts after the referendum, unlike the investigation in the United States following the 2016 presidential election. In its view, the very fact that a hostile state attempted to influence a democratic process is important regardless of whether it was successful.

Statements on information influence

Burnham said that Britain should speak more openly about attempts by hostile states to influence domestic politics, particularly amid the rise of far-right forces in Europe. Last month, speaking at the UN General Assembly, he also referred to evidence of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in the 2019 UK general election.

During a visit to Berlin, Burnham discussed with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz the threat posed by the Alternative for Germany party. According to the British prime minister, Merz raised the issue of the party’s ties with Russia, and they also discussed the spread of Russian disinformation in German politics.