LONDON – A long-awaited report on Russian influence in Britain was finally published on Tuesday, painting a damning picture of the failure of successive British governments to combat a series of threats and interference in their affairs, ranging from disinformation to buying influence.
The British stopped looking at the ball and are still catching up, the report revealed, concluding that Britain was one of Moscow’s main intelligence targets amid mounting diplomatic tensions between the two nations. As Kevan Jones, a member of Parliament who served on the intelligence committee that published the report, said on Tuesday, Russian interference in Britain “is the new normal,” and major reform is needed to counter Moscow’s destabilization efforts in the future.
These are some of the main conclusions of the report.
British intelligence agencies ignored the threat posed by Moscow.
According to the report, intelligence agencies ignored threats of Russian interference that they should have seen coming.
No agency appears to have been responsible for protecting Britain’s democratic process during a series of high-profile votes, and the report said it was “surprisingly difficult to establish who is responsible for” that.
Much of the Russian interference took place outdoors, through disinformation, and that meant it was not the primary focus of spy agencies and was partly the responsibility of other government officials. The intelligence community avoided him because he did not want to get involved in internal politics. They viewed questions about Russian influence in the Brexit referendum as a “hot potato.” But by backing down, they may have made life easier for Moscow.
He did not reveal evidence that Russia influenced the Brexit referendum.
The report did not show that Russia has significantly interfered with the 2016 Brexit vote that prompted Britain to withdraw from the European Union, nor did Russia influence the bottom line. But he suggests that no one in the British government really asked the question while the campaign was underway, or even afterward, despite evidence of meddling.
He notes that open source studies pointed to Russia’s use of bots and trolls to misinform, as well as pro-Brexit and anti-European Union articles in Russian foreign language media. But when the intelligence committee requested information from the national intelligence service, MI5, about Russia’s interference in the referendum, M15 had little to offer. Her initial response was only six lines of text.
There were signs of Russian meddling in British politics before the Brexit referendum.
Two years before the Brexit vote, Scotland held a referendum in which it chose to remain part of the United Kingdom. According to the report, there were “credible open source comments” suggesting that Russia attempted to influence the referendum in 2014.
Some commentators suggested that this was the “first post-Soviet Russian interference in a western democratic process,” the investigation said.
Russian money, not just disinformation, also plays an important role.
Another aspect of Russian influence in Britain comes from cash. Britain has welcomed the oligarchs and allowed them to recycle their cash through “Londongrad”, as the capital has been named, where wealthy Russians are well integrated into the business and social scene. The report found that a large network of lawyers, accountants and real estate agents became de facto agents knowingly or unknowingly of the Russian state.
And Russia’s influence spread to the highest levels of business in Britain. Even political figures, including some members of the House of Lords, the unelected second House of Parliament, are in some ways on the Moscow payroll thanks to business interests tied to Russia. Some work directly for the main Russian companies linked to the Russian state.
Publication of the report was delayed until after a general election.
The investigation was produced by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee, a group of senior lawmakers whose job it is to oversee Britain’s spy agencies. But the report was completed more than a year and a half ago. So why was its release delayed until Tuesday?
The report, which paints the government in a particularly unflattering way, was sent to Downing Street last year, but its publication was delayed until after a December general election that gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson a large majority. Then the post was delayed again amid haggling over committee membership that had to be reconstituted after the election.
