The Russia connectionFrom Russia with Love? U.K. Government Sits on Explosive Report

At the core of a 50-page, as yet unreleased, report compiled by the U.K’s Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) over a year ago is the question of to what extent Russian influence held sway over U.K political events, such as the 2016 Brexit referendum, and whether senior Conservatives were open to such advances.

The results of the investigation, dubbed the “Russia Report,” were supposed to be released at the end of last year. Cue Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to dissolve parliament after calling a snap election, thus delaying its publication.

Johnson then insisted that the report would be released in “due course.”

Six months later, there is still no sign of it, despite Johnson giving the report the green light. The crux of the matter is that the report could not be made public while the ISC was in limbo.

Indeed, the committee hasn’t met since December’s election — an anomaly in itself — due to Downing Street’s failure to approve a list of MPs and peers nominated for membership. In a quirk of British politics, the ISC — which scrutinizes the activities of security and intelligence agencies — reports not to parliament but to the prime minister, who must clear its reports for publication.

What Are They Hiding?
That list has now been submitted, but the delay has raised all sorts of questions and fueled theories as to what kind of a smoking gun may be buried in the report. Details of the possible content remain scant as the ISC meets almost entirely behind closed doors.

“The government kind of downplayed [the report] in the last few months that there won’t be some great reveal. What we know is that [the ISC] decided quite early in the 2017 parliament to look at Russian interference in British public life, British elections. And they said they did that on the back of the US inquiry into Russian activities in the [2016] US presidential election. They also said they were concerned about Russian influence in the EU referendum,” says Andrew Defty, associate professor of politics at the University of Lincoln and co-author of “Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services.”

In the absence of a particularly egregious revelation such as an undisclosed donation or untoward relationship, it’s the accumulation of a series of connections, says James Nixey, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House.