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The Guardian view on the Russia report: elections need to be protected | Editorial


Was the Brexit referendum swung by Vladimir Putin’s Russia? Under Boris Johnson, we may never know. Unlike the US – where a report into Russian interference in the 2016 election was produced within two months of the vote – Britons have been kept in the dark about Moscow’s meddling. On Tuesday, Mr Johnson rejected a call by MPs on the intelligence and security committee (ISC) for an inquiry into “potential Russian interference in the 2016 vote”. The government claims there was no evidence of “successful interference in the EU referendum” – but how would it know if no one has looked? The lack of curiosity about the protection of the political process from foreign influence is bad news for a liberal democracy built on the idea of safe elections. But it is good news for Mr Putin, who wants western voters to lose trust in their political systems.

The ISC report is about a year old. It seems likely that Mr Johnson had blocked its publication for political reasons. If it had emerged that there had been no assessment of the seriousness of the threat that Russia posed to our democracy last year, then without a majority in parliament he might have been forced to concede one. After December he could brush off calls for an inquiry. Given the steady stream of revelations about Mr Putin’s well-oiled campaign to interfere in elections across Europe, it ought to be obvious that there should be an appraisal of how many Russian financiers, trolls, hackers and provocateurs were allowed to influence the most important political choice the country has faced in decades.

The motivations of the prime minister deserve scrutiny. Russia is not a rival to western democracy, but it is a hostile state that lives off our moral flaws. That is the message lurking in the lucid prose of the ISC report. Mr Johnson shows little enthusiasm for the necessary steps to disrupt the flow of ill-gotten gains into the UK. His line seems to be that conniving with crooks is only wrong when one is caught. Mr Johnson thinks that if oligarchs want to enrol peers in their business interests, then that’s up to them. The prime minister appears to view influence peddlers as political entrepreneurs who don’t need to be burdened with the red tape of parliamentary reporting requirements. Then there is the burgeoning sector of enablers in the banks, law firms and estate agents who grease the wheels of money laundering. Mr Johnson thinks Britain has got the balance right when it comes to Mr Putin’s friends. He could not be more wrong.

According to the MPs, Russia is a “highly capable cyber actor” that “considers the UK one of its top western intelligence targets”. Yet elections are conducted over social media in this country with little regulation. Our politics has become poisoned by figures who have floated upwards on a rising tide of disinformation. When people stop trusting institutions, they can easily accept a conspiratorial vision of the world. The path to Brexit was eased in this way. This week, researchers at Warwick university concluded that areas that voted leave have suffered the greatest economic hit since the Brexit vote. Voters were sold a false prospectus. Mr Johnson has made a career out of shirking responsibility for the economic, political and social damage his ambition has caused. He should not be wearing the smirk of a Russian troll. Instead, the prime minister ought to be deadly serious about showing that Britain’s democracy cannot be manipulated, and that not everyone and everything is for sale.





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