U.K. Says Russians Tried to Interfere in 2019 Election
U.K. Says Russians Tried to Interfere in 2019 Election
(Bloomberg) -- Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the U.K. believes Russians tried to meddle in last year’s general election by disseminating documents relating to trade talks with the U.S.
The opposition Labour Party released the documents to the press on Nov. 27 last year, during the election campaign, saying they showed Prime Minister Boris Johnson was prepared to put the country’s National Health Service on the table in the talks.
“It is almost certain that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election through the online amplification of illicitly acquired and leaked government documents,” Raab said in a statement to Parliament on Thursday.
The Foreign Secretary stopped short of directly accusing the Russian government of being behind the leak, and said there is “no evidence of a broad spectrum Russian campaign” against the election. The documents were obtained earlier in 2019 and re-circulated during the campaign, he said.
There is an “ongoing criminal investigation,” Raab said, without saying who is conducting it or whether it is into the original leak of the document or its dissemination.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the U.K. had presented no proof. “If you’re going to talk about it, present the facts,” Zakharova said at a weekly news briefing on Thursday, describing the U.K. accusation as “foggy and contradictory.”
The announcement came Thursday, the U.K. government said, because Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, which needed to be briefed on it first, has only just been formed.
The committee’s first decision was that it will publish a long-awaited report into Russia’s interference in Britain, which was completed last year. Johnson effectively blocked its publication before the election.
The prime minister’s spokesman James Slack said Thursday it is “nonsense” to suggest Raab’s statement was intended to muddy the waters around the publication of that report.
The Labour Party, whose leader at the election, Jeremy Corbyn, was replaced by Keir Starmer in April, said it is ready to work with the government to protect British democracy.
“We condemn any attempt by Russia, or any foreign power, to interfere in our country’s democratic processes,” the party said in a statement. “Labour stands ready to work cross-party to protect our nation’s security. That includes in our response to the publication of the long-awaited report by the Intelligence Security Committee on the Russian threat to the U.K.”
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.