Andy Burnham reignited interest in Russian interference in the Brexit referendum at the weekend when he said the Kremlin had sought to influence the vote.
Speaking to the podcast The Rest is Politics, the prime minister said: “I asked the question coming to Downing Street: well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.”
In the Commons on Monday, he maintained the line but offered no further evidence, saying it was a “matter of record” that Russia sought to interfere in the 2019 general election. “We think it is inconceivable that this was the first time.”
But his opponents accused him of questioning the legitimacy of the referendum just as he was seeking to unpick the Brexit deal and opening the door to Britain rejoining the EU in the long term.
Interference versus influence
Stories of Russian interference began to emerge soon after the close-run referendum. In 2017, City, University of London researchers found thousands of Twitterbot accounts had published mainly pro-Leave material in the run-up to the referendum, only then to disappear. Others said Russia’s social media attempts were even greater.
Further studies revealed one-sided pro-Leave coverage by Russian media outlets, and the Electoral Commission launched an inquiry into the Leave.EU campaign’s funding.
It’s possible that these stories are the basis for Burnham’s claims to The Rest is Politics but he did not say who in government or the civil service told him about the interference, nor disclose any evidence.
“I think we’ve been too much on the back foot on that, actually, and we haven’t informed people sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas,” he said.
In a BBC interview on Monday, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said Russia “clearly has attempted to interfere on a number of our democratic processes” but refused to “get into specifics”.
That lack of evidence allowed the government’s opponents to go on the offensive, although their case partly rested on blurring the line between Russia interfering in the referendum and successfully influencing its outcome. And politicians on the right have criticised Russian interference in UK affairs other than the referendum.
Reform’s Nigel Farage called Burnham “a liar” during a press conference. He said: “There was no Russian interference – the Russian hoax has run all the way through this.”
Former prime minister Boris Johnson said on X Burnham’s claim was “not true” and that he had asked the security services the same question when he was foreign secretary.
“They replied that there was no evidence of any successful interference in the 2016 referendum, by Russia or any other power.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Burnham of seeking to question the result of the EU referendum on the same day he announced the date of the forthcoming EU-UK summit, at which he intended to “unpick” the Brexit deal.
“He implied that the referendum result was illegitimate because of Russian interference. Where has this come from? We all remember in 2018, the head of MI5 said that there was no evidence that Russia had influenced the EU referendum result,” said Badenoch, adding: “So, will he confirm here and now whether he believes the referendum result was legitimate? And if not, will he publish the evidence that Russia swung the results of the 2016 referendum?”
Burnham, who said he “had implied no such thing”, was later backed up by MI5 director-general Sir Ken McCallum, who said he strongly agreed with the prime minister and that Russian media, troll and bot interference in 2016 was a matter of record. But there is a “really important difference between interference attempted and outcome swayed”, he said.
The row continued at Wednesday’s PMQs when Burnham said raising the issue of Russian interference was “what the party opposite didn’t do” because “they wanted to look in the other direction”.
What we know
There is plentiful evidence of what McCallum calls interference attempted, much of it contained in official reports.
In 2018, a minority report from the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said: “Officially, the Russian government asserted its neutrality on the question of the Brexit referendum, but its English-language media outlets RT and Sputnik covered the referendum campaign extensively and offered ‘systematically one-sided coverage’ supporting a British departure from the European Union and frequently broadcasted statements from UKIP head Farage.”
The next year in the UK, a report by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee said “Kremlin-aligned” English language media outlets RT and Sputnik published significant numbers of anti-EU articles and criticised the Conservative government’s claim there was no evidence of successful interference “as the term ‘successful’ is impossible to define in retrospect”.
The committee suggested the government’s reluctance to accept the idea of Russian interference was influenced by its political implications. “The government has been very ready to accept the evidence of Russian activity in the Skripal case, an acceptance justified by the evidence. However, it is reluctant to accept evidence of interference in the 2016 Referendum in the UK.”
It also referred to Russian attempts to interfere in the 2014 Scottish referendum.
What we don’t know
Published in 2020, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia Report did not assess the extent of Russian interference in the EU referendum because the government or security services had not investigated it, “despite widespread public allegations” and open source material.
In the redacted report, the committee said the intelligence and security agencies attitude was “illogical” because “this is about the protection of the process and mechanism from hostile state interference”.
Then prime minister Johnson was criticised for a nine-month delay in publishing the report – which talked about a “failure to prepare”, “narrow coverage” and “lack of retrospective assessment” over the EU referendum – until after the 2019 general election.
During that election campaign, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn produced official documents showing that the Conservatives wanted to include the NHS in a future UK-US trade deal. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab claimed the documents had been illicitly sourced from Russia and it was “almost certain” Russian actors had sought to interfere in the general election.
The Electoral Commission’s inquiry into Leave.EU’s funding resulted in a referral to the National Crime Agency over concerns its backer Arron Banks was not the true source of loans of £8 million paid to it. Banks admitted to visiting the Russian Embassy in London several times before the referendum but vigorously denied Russian officials had sought to influence the Leave campaign. The NCA dropped its inquiry in 2019, saying there was a lack of evidence of criminality.
Last year, Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform UK Wales and leader of Ukip Wales in 2014-16, pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from a former pro-Russia Ukrainian politician to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament and to the media. Gill, who was an ally to Farage when they were MEPs in Strasbourg, was sentenced to 10.5 years under the Bribery Act.
What people are saying
“It’s very difficult to know on what basis people made decisions, and it’s difficult to know whether the Russians were making up additional lies or simply amplifying the lies that were already there.” - Dame Emily Thornberry, Labour chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
“Burnham is clearly laying the groundwork for rejoining by casting doubt on the result and throwing red meat to his base, but in the interim he now has serious questions to answer on the nature and scope of Russian interference.” - Shadow defence minister Ben Obese-Jecty
“I’m a little bit worried that if we all stay in this debate for another few days, the Russian trolls who didn’t appear to do all that much at various points over the years, they’ll be delighted they are front page.” - MI5 director-general Sir Ken McCallum
What happens next
It’s not clear whether Burnham felt he was merely stating the obvious on The Rest is Politics and was dismayed to see it blow up, or whether he was laying the groundwork for his EU strategy.
The row is likely to subside once the distinction between attempting to interfere and successfully influencing emerges more clearly from the political fog and eyes turn to the EU-UK summit next month. ■
About the author: Kevin Gopal is a Manchester-based journalist who has returned to freelancing after editing Big Issue North from 2007 until its closure in 2023. He writes regularly for The Lead to untangle the issues facing the UK and also reporting on social justice and other issues across the North of England as part of our award-winning The Lead Local titles.
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I believe it was Saudi Arabia that paid for the front and back cover of the free Metro paper to be a massive pro Brexit add a week before the vote which did coinside with a significant change in the polls to my recollection. I wounder what interest Saudi Arabia had in the UK separating from the EU. Or were they operating as agents for someone else's interests?