{"id":735842,"date":"2026-08-12T18:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735842\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T18:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T18:38:15","slug":"uk-government-wont-release-files-on-israeli-firm-meddling-in-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/735842\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Government Won\u2019t Release Files on Israeli Firm \u2018Meddling\u2019 in Election"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British government has refused to release any files about alleged meddling by an Israeli firm in elections in Scotland earlier this year.<\/p>\n

A little-known firm named BlackCore was accused by French authorities in June <\/a>of meddling in elections in Scotland, France, New York, Angola and Togo after a probe uncovered the use of fake social media accounts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Viginum, a French government agency that fights foreign digital interference, said BlackCore had coordinated hundreds of accounts to post negative comments about Scottish first minister John Swinney during his bid for re-election, which was nonetheless successful.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agency launched an investigation after evidence suggested BlackCore may have tried to smear three candidates from the leftwing France Unbowed party during municipal elections in March, Reuters reported<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the National newspaper asked for files<\/a> relating to the allegations under freedom of information (FOI) rules, the UK Cabinet Office rejected the request to \u201cavoid giving offence to other nations and retain the trust of our international partners\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also said doing so could damage national security. \u201cTaking into account all the circumstances of this case, we have determined that the balance of the public interest favours withholding this information,\u201d it said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An exemption under FOI rules allows for information to be withheld if it would \u201cprejudice relations between the United Kingdom and any other state\u201d.<\/p>\n

Scotland\u2019s government, however, did release some files in response to an identical request made by the National, while withholding others on national security grounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The files suggest that Swinney and other government figures were unaware of the allegations about BlackCore until they saw them in the media.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might not have seen this,\u201d one email between two redacted addresses said.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

John Webster, the principal private secretary to the first minister, was copied in. He replied: \u201cI have shared this with FM [Swinney] \u2013 anticipating that he will want to understand more about this report\u2026 and what actions remedial and future \/ proactive are being taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay told the National: \u201cThese allegations of meddling in elections from BlackCore represent a potentially extremely serious attack on Scotland\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public deserves to know whether warnings were missed before polling day, and what action has been taken since. All governments should do their part to provide clear assurances that Scotland\u2019s democratic processes are being protected.\u201d<\/p>\n

BlackCore deleted its online presence after being contacted by Reuters in June, and has not made any public statements about the allegations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British government has refused to release any files about alleged meddling by an Israeli firm in elections…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-735842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}