The Russia connectionMI5 Did Nothing to Stop Russia’s “Nihilistic” Campaign to Undermine, Corrupt British Democracy
On Tuesday, the U.K. government released a long-awaited report by the British Parliament’s Intelligence Committee on Russian meddling in British politics. The report says that Russia has mounted a prolonged, sophisticated campaign to undermine Britain’s democracy and corrupt British politics. The committee’s account characterized Russia as a reckless country bent on recapturing its status as a “great power,” primarily by destabilizing those in the West. “The security threat posed by Russia is difficult for the West to manage as, in our view and that of many others, it appears fundamentally nihilistic,” the authors said. The report, in many ways, is harder on British officials than the Russians. It is unsparing in the answer it gives to the question who is protecting British democracy: “No one is,” the report warns.
On Tuesday, the U.K. government released a long-awaited report by the British Parliament’s Intelligence Committee on Russian meddling in British politics. The report says that Russia has mounted a prolonged, sophisticated campaign to undermine Britain’s democracy and corrupt British politics.
“From meddling in elections and spreading disinformation to funneling dirty money and employing members of the House of Lords, the Russians have tried to co-opt politicians and corrode institutions, often with little resistance from law enforcement or intelligence agencies that ignored years of warning signs,” the New York Times summarizes the report’s findings.
The report, in many ways, is harder on British officials than the Russians. It is unsparing in the answer it gives to the question who is protecting British democracy:
“No one is,” the report warns.
The report paints a picture of years of Russian interference through disinformation spread by traditional media outlets, like the cable-TV channel RT, and by the use of internet bots and trolls. This activity dated back to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, but it was never confronted by the country’s political establishment or by the country’s intelligence community.
The U.K. government responded that it had “seen no evidence of successful interference in the [2016] EU referendum” and dismissed the need for further investigation, but the Intelligence Committee suggested that the reason no evidence had been uncovered was because nobody had looked for it.
“In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text,” the committee said. Had the intelligence agencies conducted a threat assessment before the 2014 Scottish Independence vote or the 2016 Brexit vote, it added, it was “inconceivable” that they would not have concluded there was a Russian threat.
“We did know most of this,” Martin Innes, director of the Crime and Security Research Institute at Cardiff University, told the Times, “but people were not joining the dots and seeing that quite a serious situation was developing.”
“What Russia wants is to be able to play great power politics,” Professor Innes said. “And one of the ways of doing that is by destabilizing the U.K. and some of its close allies to create that space to maneuver.”
