Andy Burnham has said UK authorities are \u201cclear\u201d that there was Russian interference in the Brexit vote: this is the first time a prime minister has confirmed Kremlin involvement in the 2016 referendum.<\/p>\n
Burnham, speaking on The Rest Is Politics podcast, to be released on Monday, opens up the possibility of greater government transparency over allegations of Russian interference, after years in which Downing Street has declined to confirm what UK authorities knew about the part the Kremlin might have played in 2016.<\/p>\n
The Observer was the first to reveal concerns arising from a series of meetings between Russian officials and senior figures at the Leave. EU campaign, including mega donor Arron Banks. It is not suggested Banks or any other Leave. EU figure was engaged in wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Separately, there have been widespread allegations that Russian government agencies used troll factories and fake internet accounts to manipulate social media and influence British public opinion in favour of leaving the EU in the run-up to the referendum.<\/p>\n
Burnham, who last week met the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, in Berlin, said the pair discussed the growing risks posed by hostile states, and that his counterpart \u201cwas saying to me that the AfD [Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland] are clearly linked to Russia \u2013 funded, I believe\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the podcast, he added: \u201cThere is certainly misinformation, disinformation that is emanating from Russia into German politics\u2026 But I asked the question coming to Downing Street: was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? And I\u2019ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burnham said the country had been \u201ctoo much on the back foot\u201d, which meant voters had not been \u201cinformed\u2026 sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the UN a fortnight ago, Burnham touched on Russian interference in UK democracy without discussing the Brexit vote. He said: \u201cWe have evidence that they tried to interfere with the 2019 general election. We also know that they have tried to stoke tensions and unrest in the wake of horrific events.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2020 Russia report, written by parliament\u2019s intelligence and security committee (ISC) and heavily redacted before publication, said it was unable to reach a conclusion because: \u201cWe have not been provided with any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts at interference.\u201d The ISC\u2019s request for a further assessment to be carried out, with an \u201cunclassified summary\u201d to be made public, was rejected by the Boris Johnson-led government of the time.<\/p>\n
The 2016 referendum was outside the scope of Philip Rycroft\u2019s recent review<\/a> of foreign financial influence and interference, although the senior civil servant noted that the UK was \u201ca target of long-term strategic foreign interference and espionage from elements of the Russian, Chinese and Iranian states\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2018, The Observer<\/a> revealed<\/a> that leaders of Leave.EU had held multiple meetings with high-ranking Russian officials between November 2015 and 2017, and made a trip to Moscow in February 2016.<\/p>\n Banks has repeatedly denied any involvement with Russian officials, or that Russian money played any part in the Brexit campaign.<\/p>\n Later in 2018, the then Sunday Times journalist Isabel Oakeshott suggested that the Kremlin might have \u201cliterally struck gold\u201d in forging a relationship with Banks \u2013 who would go on to become the biggest single donor to Brexit \u2013 and fellow Leave.EU campaigner Andy Wigmore. \u201cMy analysis is that Banks and Wigmore were shamelessly used by the Russians,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Banks was investigated by the Electoral Commission, which referred the matter to the National Crime Agency (NCA).<\/p>\n Questioned over the \u201ctrue source\u201d of \u00a38m loaned to the Leave.EU campaign, Banks told the BBC: \u201cThere was no Russian money and no interference of any type. I want to be absolutely clear about that. The money came from Rock Services, which was a UK limited company.\u201d<\/p>\n The NCA subsequently found \u201cno evidence\u201d of criminal offences. Banks threatened to take the Electoral Commission to court for defamation in October 2019, before the two sides settled the following year.<\/p>\n A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment on the nature of the prime minister\u2019s briefing but said: \u201cNational security is the first duty of any government \u2013 we are focused on ensuring our citizens and our institutions are protected from foreign powers and their proxies seeking to threaten lives and undermine our democratic values.\u201d<\/p>\n Photograph by Gavriil Grigorov\/ AFP via Getty Images, POOL\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham has said UK authorities are \u201cclear\u201d that there was Russian interference in the Brexit vote: this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[934,59,57,58,50,154,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-799071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-brexit","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799071","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=799071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}