Burnham’s New Direction

Saying the ‘Unsayable’: Russian Interference

Andy Burnham has broken a decade of establishment silence over Putin’s plan to get Britain out of the EU. Peter Jukes reports

It has taken 10 years. Ten years since the first evidence emerged of Russian social media accounts pushing for Brexit. Eight years since the FBI’s Mueller Report, and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee revealing the extent of Kremlin “information warfare” against the United States and the UK.

And six years since the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia Report – which revealed Russian financial influence operations in UK political parties – was suppressed by Boris Johnson.

Speaking recently on the Rest Is Politics podcast, Prime Minister Andy Burnham confirmed what many journalists, law-makers, and campaigners have said for years: “There is certainly misinformation, disinformation that is emanating from Russia into German politics… But I asked the question coming to Downing Street: was there interference in the 2016 Referendum from Russia? And I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was.”

This is the first time the British state has openly recognised something accepted by other intelligence agencies in the US and Europe: that Brexit was a target of Vladimir Putin’s disinformation warfare.