MI5 Did Nothing to Stop Russia’s “Nihilistic” Campaign to Undermine, Corrupt British Democracy

In an editorial, The Telegraphy said:

As if any more confirmation were needed, it is now beyond obvious that Russia is a rogue state that must be confronted robustly. Instead of doing Putin’s work for him by questioning the integrity of our democratic processes, it would be better if we turned our sights on how, in concert with our allies, we can more effectively address the danger to the free world that he represents.

In its editorial, The Times said:

More worryingly, the committee warns that Russian money has become so pervasive in this country’s political and financial systems that its influence is now “the new normal” for Britain. The report notes how Russian oligarchs have been able to take advantage of “the London laundromat” to launder not only their illicit wealth via the City but their reputations too. They have invested their money in “extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment” while providing employment for a large “industry of enablers”, including lawyers, accountants, estate agents and public relations professionals. The report notes that many members of the House of Lords have business links to Russia. Many of the Conservative Party’s top donors are Russians with Kremlin links.

The committee’s pessimistic conclusion is that the most that Britain can now hope to do is to mitigate Russian influence. The government should start by giving the intelligence agencies the powers and resources they need to counter the threat. That should include overhauling the outdated Official Secrets Act and introducing a US-style Foreign Agents Registration Act, which would require Russian political and quasi-political actors to declare themselves or face deportation. Of course those weapons are also needed to boost Britain’s defenses against another potentially hostile state with ambitions to subvert the global rules-based order to its own advantage: China.

Excerpts from the Russia Report

“There have been widespread allegations that Russia sought to influence voters in the 2016 referendum on the U.K.’s membership of the EU: 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.

“The actual impact of such attempts on the result itself would be difficult — if not impossible — to prove. However what is clear is that the government was slow to recognize the existence of the threat – only understanding it after the ‘hack and leak’ operation against the Democratic National Committee, when it should have been seen as early as 2014.

“As a result, the government did not take action to protect the U.K.’s process in 2016. The committee has not been provided with any post-referendum assessment — in stark contrast to the U.S. response to reports of interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“In our view there must be an analogous assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum.”

However, the government said that there was “no evidence” of interference.

The committee accused MI5 of operating with “extreme caution” over the risk of Russian interference and called its approach “illogical.” It said that the agency should take responsibility for the protection of democratic processes from “hostile state interference.”

The government “took its eye off the ball” and welcomed Russian oligarchs with “open arms.”

The report said:

“What is now clear is that it [the open arms approach] was in fact counter-productive, in that it offered ideal mechanisms by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London ‘laundromat’.

“The money was also invested in extending patronage and building influence across a wide sphere of the British establishment — PR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions were all willing beneficiaries of Russian money, contributing to a ‘reputation laundering’ process.

“Russian influence in the UK is the ‘new normal’, and there are a lot of Russians with very close links to Putin who are well integrated into the UK business and social scene, and accepted because of their wealth.

“This level of integration — in ‘Londongrad’ in particular — means that any measures now being taken by the government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.”

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.