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Sections: 39-42
Case study: the EU referendum
39. There have been widespread public allegations that
Russia sought to influence the 2016 referendum on the UK's
membership of the EU. The impact of any such attempts would
be difficult if not impossible to assess, and we
have not sought to do so. However, it is important to
establish whether a hostile state took deliberate action with
the aim of influencing a UK democratic process, irrespective
of whether it was successful or not.
40. Open source studies have pointed to the
preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and
Sputnik, and the use of `bots' and `trolls', as evidence of
Russian attempts to influence the process. 42 We have sought
to establish whether there is secret intelligence which
supported or built on these studies. In response to our
request for written evidence at the outset of the Inquiry,
MI5 initially provided just six lines of text. It stated that
***, before referring to academic studies. 43 This was
noteworthy in terms of the way it was couched (***) and the
reference to open source studies ***. The brevity was also,
to us, again, indicative of the extreme caution amongst the
intelligence and security Agencies at the thought that they
might have any role in relation to the UK's democratic
processes, and particularly one as contentious as the EU
referendum. We repeat that this attitude is illogical; this
is about the protection of the process and mechanism from
hostile state interference, which should fall to our
intelligence and security Agencies.
(i) Failure to prepare
41. There has been credible open source commentary
suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in
relation to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. 44
However, at the time ***. It appears that *** what some
commentators have described as potentially the first
post-Soviet Russian interference in a Western democratic
process. We note that almost five years on ***.
45
42. It was only when Russia completed a `hack and leak'
operation against the Democratic National Committee in the US
with the stolen emails being made public a month after
the EU referendum that it appears that the Government
belatedly realised the level of threat which Russia could
pose in this area, given that the risk thresholds in the
Kremlin had clearly shifted, describing the US `hack and
leak' as a "game changer", 46 and admitting that "prior to
what we saw in the States, [Russian interference] wasn't
generally understood as a big threat to [electoral]
processes". 47
43. It appears that the Intelligence Community did
learn lessons from the US experience, and HMG recognised the
Russian threat to the UK's democratic processes and political
discourse. In May 2017, the Joint Intelligence Committee
(JIC) concluded that "***" and that "***". 48 Had the
relevant parts of the Intelligence Community conducted a
similar threat assessment prior to the referendum, it is
inconceivable that they would not have reached the same
conclusion as to Russian intent, which might then have led
them to take action to protect the process.
(ii) Narrow coverage
44. The written evidence provided to us appeared to
suggest that HMG had not seen or sought evidence of
successful interference in UK democratic processes or any
activity that has had a material impact on an election, for
example influencing results. 49,50 ***. ***. 51
