Jump to content

Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Russia and brexit)

Russian interference in the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum is a debated subject and remains unproven, though multiple sources argue evidence exists demonstrating that the Russian government attempted to influence British public opinion in favour of leaving the European Union.[1] Investigations into this subject have been undertaken by the UK Electoral Commission, the UK Parliament's Culture Select Committee and Intelligence and Security Committee, and the United States Senate.[2][3] "The Russia Report" published by the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament in July 2020 did not specifically address the Brexit campaign, but it concluded that Russian interference in UK politics is commonplace.[4][5] It also found substantial evidence that there had been interference in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.[6][5]

Timeline

[edit]

Background

[edit]

After the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum on the UK leaving the EU ("Brexit"), Prime Minister David Cameron suggested that Russia "might be happy" with a positive Brexit vote. The official Remain campaign accused the Kremlin of secretly backing a positive Brexit vote.[7]

Before the vote

[edit]
  • 22 July 2014, Laurence Levy, a lawyer with the U.S. law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, advised U.S. heiress Rebekah Mercer, American media executive Steve Bannon, and British businessman Alexander Nix on the legality of their company, Cambridge Analytica, being involved in U.S. elections. He advised that Nix and any foreign nationals without a green card working for the company not be involved in any decisions about work the company performs for any clients related to U.S. elections. He further advised Nix to recuse himself from any involvement with the company's U.S. election work because he is not a U.S. citizen.[8][9]
  • 26–27 September 2015, during the UKIP annual conference at the Doncaster Racecourse, British political activist Andy Wigmore met Alexander Udod, a Russian diplomat and suspected Russian intelligence officer, who in 2018 was expelled from the U.K. in retaliation for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. In October, Udod arranged a November lunch for Wigmore, British businessman Arron Banks and the Russian ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko.[10][11][12]
  • 24 October 2015, Arron Banks sent an email to Steve Bannon and others to request help from Cambridge Analytica, where Bannon was a VP, with fundraising in the U.S. for the Leave.EU campaign. Foreign contributions to British political campaigns are illegal. Banks came under criminal investigation in 2018 in part over questions about Leave.EU's funding sources.[13][14]
  • 6 November 2015, Wigmore and Banks had lunch with Yakovenko at the ambassador's residence in London; they briefed him on Brexit. In a June 2018 interview, Wigmore told The Washington Post his goal for the meeting was to discuss finding a buyer for a banana plantation in Belize.[10][11]
  • 17 November 2015, Andy Wigmore, Banks, and Cambridge Analytica executive Brittany Kaiser launched the Leave.EU campaign.[15][16] Yakovenko introduces Wigmore and Banks to Russian oligarch Siman Povarenkin and documents related to the meeting suggest Banks was offered business deals, per The Guardian reports from 2018.[15]
  • 16 February 2016 – Boris Johnson dined with Evgeny Lebedev, son of Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev; Johnson shortly after backed the Leave campaign.[17]
  • March 2016, Philip Hammond, the former Secretary for Defence and Foreign Secretary (later the Chancellor of the Exchequer) stated in a speech "the only country who would like us to leave the EU is Russia".[18]

After the 23 June 2016 vote

[edit]

2016

[edit]
  • 21 July 2016, Wigmore and Nigel Farage encountered staffers for Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant at the bar in the Hilton Hotel. A staffer invited Wigmore and Farage to Mississippi.[10]
  • 12 November 2016, Banks, Farage and Wigmore visited Trump Tower unannounced and were invited inside by Bannon. They have a long meeting with Trump. Wigmore asked Trump's receptionist for the Trump transition team's contact information.[19][10][11]
  • December 2016, Ben Bradshaw MP claimed in Parliament that Russia had interfered in the Brexit referendum campaign.[20] In February 2017, Bradshaw called on the British intelligence service, Government Communications Headquarters, then under Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary, to reveal any information it had on Russian interference.[21]

2017

[edit]

2018

[edit]
  • January 2018, a US Senate minority report suggested possible ways Russia may have influenced the Brexit campaign.[31] It stated,[32]

The Russian government has sought to influence democracy in the United Kingdom through disinformation, cyber hacking, and corruption. While a complete picture of the scope and nature of Kremlin interference in the UK's June 2016 referendum is still emerging, Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK government have condemned the Kremlin's active measures, and various UK government entities, including the Electoral Commission and parliamentarians, have launched investigations into different aspects of possible Russian government meddling.

  • 19 March 2018, Channel 4 broadcast its investigative documentary on Cambridge Analytica.[33]
  • June 2018, The Guardian suggested that Arron Banks, the biggest donor to the campaign for leaving, and co-organiser of Leave.EU received the offer of a Russian gold mine, and had had a series of meetings with the Russian Ambassador. On 14 June 2018, Banks appeared before Parliamentary committee hearing, where he appeared to admit to having lied about his engagements with Russians, and later walked out refusing to answer further questions by citing a luncheon appointment with the Democratic Unionist Party.[34][failed verification]
  • July 2018, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, released an interim report on 'Disinformation and ‘fake news’', stating that Russia had engaged in "unconventional warfare" through Twitter and other social media against the United Kingdom, designed to amplify support for a "leave" vote in Brexit.[35]
  • 20 September 2018, AggregateIQ, a Canadian political consultancy and analytics company, received the first General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) notice issued by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for using people's data "for purposes which they would not have expected." Various pro-Brexit campaigns paid the company £3.5 million to target ads at prospective voters. While its Brexit work was before the GDPR went into effect, it was fined because it retained and continued to use the data after the GDPR came into full force. The company is affiliated with SCL Group and Cambridge Analytica, and Cambridge Analytica employees sometimes call AggregateIQ "our Canadian office."[36]
  • 1 November 2018, The British National Crime Agency opens a criminal investigation into Arron Banks upon referral from the Electoral Commission and concluded "we have reasonable grounds to suspect that: Mr Banks was not the true source of the £8m reported as loans" and "Various criminal offences may have been committed."[37] The commission believes Banks facilitated a loan from Rock Holdings to his Leave.EU campaign. Rock Holdings is barred from funding campaigns in the U.K. under British election law because it is on the Isle of Man, which is a possession of the British Crown but not part of the United Kingdom.[38]

2019

[edit]
  • February 2019, The Guardian reported that Brittany Kaiser, former business development director of SCL Group, was subpoenaed by Robert Mueller. Her spokesman said she was cooperating fully with his investigation. She was the first person with links to both Brexit and the Trump campaign known to have been questioned by Mueller.[39]
  • 17 October 2019, the Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament passed a completed report on allegations that Russian government-sponsored activities had an effect on the outcome of the referendum to Downing Street.[40]
  • 4 November 2019, Downing Street commented that the report received on 17 October will not be published prior to the 2019 UK General Election.[40]

2020

[edit]

2023

[edit]
  • 19 January 2023, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg asked the UK government to respond to allegations of Russian interference. This follows requests from lawmakers from the Labour party, the SNP and the Green Party, and following a rejection of the case by the High Court in London in 2021.[42]

Social media

[edit]

Ad influence in the Brexit referendum included the promotion of misinformation through both fake social media accounts and state-sponsored media outlets such as RT and Sputnik.[43] In addition to interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Russian trolls have previously been documented promoting fake claims of election fraud after the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and attempting to amplify the public impact of terrorist attacks,[44] with Prime Minister Theresa May accusing the Russian government of “deploying its state-run media organisations to plant fake stories and photo-shopped images in an attempt to sow discord in the West and undermine our institutions”.[45]

RT

[edit]

According to a US senate report, Russian state media channel RT covered the referendum campaign extensively and offered "systematically one-sided coverage".[46][47] A parliamentary inquiry into disinformation and 'fake news' cited research estimating the value of anti-EU Russian state media during the EU referendum campaign at between £1.4 and £4.14 million.[44]

Twitter bots

[edit]

Data released by Twitter in 2018 identified 3,841 accounts of Russian origin affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, as well as 770 potentially from Iran, which collectively sent over 10 million Tweets in "an effort to spread disinformation and discord", according to The Telegraph, with a "day-long blitz" on the day of the referendum.[48][49] One study, with a sample of 1.5 million tweets containing hashtags relating to the referendum, found that almost a third of all tweets had been generated by just 1% of the 300,000 sampled accounts. They found that both pro-Leave and pro-Remain bots existed but that "the family of hashtags associated with the argument for leaving the EU dominates", with pro-Leave bots tweeting more than three times as often.[50][51]

In November 2017, The Times reported that researchers from Swansea University and UC Berkeley had identified around 150,000 accounts with links to Russia that tweeted about Brexit in the run-up to the referendum.[52][53] Others at City, University of London had previously documented a network of 794,949 accounts that tweeted about the referendum, of which 482,193 could be located geographically: only 30,122 of these were based in the UK, rather fewer than the 40,031 accounts designated as "deactivated, removed, blocked, set to private, or whose username was altered after the referendum".[54]: 13  A working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research claims the influence of Twitter bots may have been significant enough to impact the result, roughly calculating that automated accounts may have ultimately been responsible for around 1.76 percentage points of the 'Leave' vote share.[55][56]

An analysis by cybersecurity firm F-Secure indicated that "suspicious activity" relating to Brexit-related posts on Twitter has continued after the referendum and into 2019, with Professor Jason Reifler of the University of Exeter commenting that the observed patterns of activity are consistent with tactics used by Russian troll farms.[57][58]

Questions about Arron Banks' funding

[edit]

British Journalist Isabel Oakeshott stated in an article for the Times: "As part of my research I uncovered controversial information about links between Arron Banks and his associate Andy Wigmore and the Russian embassy in London. The relationship began in autumn 2015, when Banks was gearing up for the Brexit campaign, and continued throughout the referendum and beyond. The Kremlin was simply doing what it does so well: identifying individuals who might be useful to President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical aims and seeing what might come of it.

In Banks and Wigmore it literally struck gold. In due course, Banks would become the single biggest donor to the Brexit campaign, putting him at the heart of British politics. Banks and Wigmore genuinely sympathised — and continue to sympathise — with some of Putin’s political views. Banks, after all, is married to a Russian. My analysis is that Banks and Wigmore were shamelessly used by the Russians."[59]

Arron Banks was the largest donor to the Brexit campaign. Prior to the donations, Southern Rock, Banks' underwriting company was technically insolvent and needed to find £60m to meet regulations.[60] It was saved by a £77m cash injection, mostly in September 2015 from another company, ICS Risk Solutions. According to openDemocracy, when questioned by MP Rebecca Pow, "Banks implied that this was simply him shuffling money between two companies he owns".[61] They have also reported that, while Banks has stated that he owns 90 per cent of the company he appears to actually own between 50 and 75% according to filings from a subsidiary, "suggest[ing] there may be an undeclared shareholder."[62]

At the time, Louise Kentish of a company called STM joined the board. The day after the referendum, her husband Alan Kentish, CEO of STM and two other STM people joined as well.[63] STM specialises in opaque wealth management using trusts and similar.[63]

Around the same time, September 2015, Banks, along with Andy Wigmore, started having multiple meetings with Russian officials posted at the Russian embassy in London.[64][65]

Also according to his South African business partner, Christopher Kimber,[66] Banks had been in Russia trying to raise funds around that time: "I was finally made aware in October [2015] that in truth, Banks had been dealing with Russians who contemplated investing in the mines.... I was informed by Banks that he had travelled to Russia and discussed with them the diamond opportunities as well as gold mining opportunities in Russia. He further indicated that he would be meeting with the Russians again during November [2015]."[67]

Months after the cash injection Banks started making large donations to political causes including the £8m to the Brexit campaigns. The UK's Electoral Commission stated "we have reasonable grounds to suspect that: Mr Banks was not the true source of the £8m reported as loans" leading to the 2018 criminal investigation of Banks.[37][68][63][60]

Banks states there was no Russian money and sent financial statements to the BBC's Newsnight programme to prove it but an email attached to the statements included the text "Redact the reference for Ural Properties and any references which include sensitive info e.g. the account numbers the money was sent from." Newsnight featured a story about this on 8 November 2018. It remains to be seen which accounts these are or what Ural Properties, a Gibraltar-based company, does.[69][70]

On 13 September 2019, the Metropolitan Police concluded that while "it is clear that whilst some technical breaches of electoral law were committed by Leave.EU in respect of the spending return submitted for their campaign, there is insufficient evidence to justify any further criminal investigation",[71][72] and on 24 September 2019, the National Crime Agency said it had found no evidence of criminality in respect of the issues raised by the Electoral Commission and that no further action would be taken.[73] This left investigations of Banks closed.

Russia report

[edit]

On 17 October 2019, the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament delivered to the Government "The Russia report" into allegations of Russian interference in British politics, including alleged Russian interference in the referendum.[74][40] The government (led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson), which formally has authority to control the timing of its release to the public, refused to do so before the 2019 United Kingdom general election in December.[75] A number of legal actions tried to force the government to publish it.[76] In November, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism started a crowdfunding exercise to raise funds for legal action to force the British government to release the report.[77] In July 2020 the report was released by the ISC led by chairman Julian Lewis MP [5]

The report said the government “had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes,” and an official UK government response said: “We have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU referendum.”[5]

The report also stated that the government had made minimal effort to investigate potential Russian interference into the Brexit referendum other than consulting open-source commentary.[5] The report discussed more broadly Russian interference in British politics, including an extensive "laundromat" of Russian investment into the United Kingdom often connected to the Russian state and the Putin-linked elite.[78][79] It discussed the likely effect on politics and that many members of the House of Lords have business interests in Russia.[79] The report stated that no government ministry took significant interest or specific responsibility in investigation, and that the British intelligence community believed election integrity was not a major focus.[79] It stated the presence of Russian intelligence in the UK is significant and poses a risk to Russian expatriates who criticise Putin.[78]

The report describes the United Kingdom as one of Russia's "top targets" and said it is "seen as central to the Western anti-Russian lobby".[80]

In September 2020, the Electoral Commission raised concerns about Russia-linked donations to the Tories that occurred prior to the Brexit referendum.[81][82] In October 2021, the Pandora Papers revealed more information about the potentially Kremlin-linked donations and multiple others.[83]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Francesca Gillet (2 November 2017). "Electoral Commission launches probe into Russian meddling in Brexit vote using Twitter and Facebook". Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 23 April 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  2. ^ "UK investigates Brexit campaign funding amid speculation of Russian meddling". Reuters. 1 November 2017. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  3. ^ Wintour, P. (10 January 2018). "Russian bid to influence Brexit vote detailed in new US Senate report". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 August 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  4. ^ Ellehuus, Rachel; Ruy, Donatienne. "Did Russia Influence Brexit?". www.csis.org. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Archived from the original on 1 May 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  5. ^ a b c d e "Russia report reveals UK government failed to investigate Kremlin interference". The Guardian. 21 July 2020. Archived from the original on 12 August 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  6. ^ Welle, Deutsche (21 July 2020). "Russia report damning of UK government's 'lack of curiosity'". DW.COM. Archived from the original on 26 May 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2021.
  7. ^ Rosenberg, Steve (26 June 2016). "EU referendum: What does Russia gain from Brexit?". BBC. Archived from the original on 3 June 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  8. ^ Levy, Laurence (22 July 2014). "Participation in US Elections" (PDF). Bracewell & Giuliani LLP. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2018 – via MSNBC.
  9. ^ Schecter, Anna R. (23 March 2018). "Wylie: Foreigners worked for Cambridge Analytica on NC Senate campaign". NBC News. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 23 March 2018.
  10. ^ a b c d Roig-Franzia, Manuel; Helderman, Rosalind S.; Booth, William; Hamburger, Tom; Timberg, Craig; Crites, Alice; Dawsey, Josh; Tate, Julie; Adam, Karla (28 June 2018). "How the 'Bad Boys of Brexit' forged ties with Russia and the Trump campaign – and came under investigators' scrutiny". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  11. ^ a b c "Email trail shows how Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore were cultivated". The Sunday Times. 10 June 2018. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  12. ^ "BBC Parliament – UKIP Conference". BBC. Archived from the original on 7 March 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2018.
  13. ^ Townsend, Mark; Cadwalladr, Carole (17 November 2018). "Emails reveal Arron Banks' links to Steve Bannon in quest for campaign cash". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 15 May 2021. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  14. ^ Jane Mayer (17 November 2018). "New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica's Role in Brexit". NewYorker.com. Archived from the original on 5 August 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  15. ^ a b Cadwalladr, Carole; Jukes, Peter (8 July 2018). "Revealed: Leave.EU campaign met Russian officials as many as 11 times". TheGuardian.com. Archived from the original on 1 June 2021. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  16. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole; Jukes, Peter (9 June 2018). "Arron Banks 'met Russian officials multiple times before Brexit vote'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 July 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2018.
  17. ^ Harding, Luke; Sabbagh, Dan (21 October 2020). "Boris Johnson and Evgeny Lebedev: a decade of politics, parties and peerages | Conservatives". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  18. ^ P. Hammond, Alternatives to EU Membership Archived 2021-05-16 at the Wayback Machine (2 March 2016) UK Government speeches, "the EU already either has, or is negotiating, trade deals with all the biggest Commonwealth countries, and none of our allies wants us to leave the EU. Not Australia, not New Zealand, not Canada, not the US. In fact, the only country who would like us to leave the EU is Russia. That should tell us all we need to know."
  19. ^ Sabbagh, Dan (12 June 2018). "Arron Banks tells MPs: I have no business interests in Russia". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2018. "What's wrong with that? We gave them a telephone number," Banks said. The committee heard Wigmore had obtained the number after he supplied one for No 10 to a receptionist for Donald Trump. According to Wigmore, she said: "You're British, do you have the telephone number for No 10 Downing Street? We do not have [a] relationship with the British or any of these governments."
  20. ^ Highly probable' that Russia interfered in Brexit referendum, Labour MP says' (13 December 2016) Independent Archived 2016-12-13 at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ J. Kanter and A. Bienkov, 'Labour MPs think the government is hiding info about Russia interfering with Brexit' (23 February 2016) Business Insider
  22. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole (26 February 2017). "Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 27 February 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  23. ^ "AAPC awards Tony Fabrizio as Pollster of the Year". Fabrizio Lee. 17 March 2017. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 12 July 2018.
  24. ^ Shipman, March 26. (26 March 2017). "The bad boys of Brexit join fight to break up California". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 13 July 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2018.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. ^ Chumley, Cheryl K. (28 March 2017). "Brexit chiefs eye 2-state solution for California – Calexit". The Washington Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  26. ^ Wisckol, Martin (1 April 2017). "California split overplayed, says Scott Baugh, former Orange County GOP chairman". Orange County Register. Archived from the original on 14 July 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  27. ^ 'MPs order Facebook to hand over evidence of Russian election meddling' (24 October 2017) Telegraph Archived 2017-12-16 at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ T. Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America (Penguin Random House 2018) 105. C. Cadwalladr, 'Brexit, the ministers, the professor and the spy: how Russia pulls strings in UK' (4 November 2017) Guardian Archived 2021-02-09 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ Democratic Congressmen request information about possible Russian interference in "Brexit" vote Archived 2021-02-09 at the Wayback Machine (12 December 2017).
  30. ^ M. Burgess, 'Facebook claims Russia paid for 3 ads around Brexit – costing 73p' (13 December 2017) Wired Archived 2018-01-16 at the Wayback Machine
  31. ^ P. Wintour, 'Russian bid to influence Brexit vote detailed in new US Senate report' (10 January 2018) Guardian Archived 2021-08-07 at the Wayback Machine
  32. ^ US Committee on Foreign Relations, Minority Report, 'Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security' (2018 Archived 2021-02-09 at the Wayback Machine)
  33. ^ "Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks". Channel 4. 19 March 2018. Archived from the original on 28 June 2018. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  34. ^ C. Cadwalladr, 'Arron Banks ‘met Russian officials multiple times before Brexit vote’' (9 June 2018) Guardian. C. Cadwalladr and P. Jukes, 'Leave. EU faces new questions over contacts with Russia Archived 2021-02-09 at the Wayback Machine' (16 June 2018) Guardian. C. Cadwalladr, 'Arron Banks, Brexit and the Russia connection Archived 2018-06-18 at the Wayback Machine' (16 June 2018) The Observer.
  35. ^ House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, 'Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report' (July 2018) (July 2018) ch 5, Russian influence in political campaigns Archived 2018-11-22 at the Wayback Machine
  36. ^ Baraniuk, Chris (20 September 2018). "Vote Leave data firm hit with first ever GDPR notice". BBC News. Archived from the original on 28 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  37. ^ a b "Electoral Commission | Report on investigation into payments made to Better for the Country and Leave.EU". electoralcommission.org.uk. November 2018. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  38. ^ Castle, Stephen (1 November 2018). "'Godfather of Brexit' Arron Banks Investigated Over Campaign Financing". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  39. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole (17 February 2019). "Mueller questions Cambridge Analytica director Brittany Kaiser". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 17 February 2019.
  40. ^ a b c Dan Sabbagh, Peter Walker and Luke Harding, 'No 10 blocks Russia EU referendum report until after election Archived 2019-11-04 at the Wayback Machine', The Guardian (4 November 2019).
  41. ^ "Russia Report" (PDF). Retrieved 22 January 2023.
  42. ^ "ECHR asks Britain to respond to election interference legal claim". Reuters. 19 January 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  43. ^ Ajir, Media; Vailliant, Bethany (2018). "Russian Information Warfare: Implications for Deterrence Theory". Strategic Studies Quarterly. 12 (3): 70–89. ISSN 1936-1815. JSTOR 26481910. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  44. ^ a b "Disinformation and 'fake news': Final Report". publications.parliament.uk. Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee – House of Commons. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  45. ^ Mason, Rowena (14 November 2017). "Theresa May accuses Russia of interfering in elections and fake news". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  46. ^ Wintour, Patrick (10 January 2018). "Russian bid to influence Brexit vote detailed in new US Senate report". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 7 August 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  47. ^ "Putin's Asymemetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security" (PDF). foreign.senate.gov. 10 January 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  48. ^ Field, Matthew; Wright, Mike (17 October 2018). "Russian trolls sent thousands of pro-Leave messages on day of Brexit referendum, Twitter data reveals". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  49. ^ "Enabling further research of information operations on Twitter". blog.twitter.com. Archived from the original on 23 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  50. ^ Baraniuk, Chris (21 June 2016). "Beware the Brexit bots: The Twitter spam out to swing your vote". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 2 May 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  51. ^ Howard, Philip N.; Kollanyi, Bence (2016). "Bots, #Strongerin, and #Brexit: Computational Propaganda During the UK-EU Referendum". Comprop. arXiv:1606.06356. Bibcode:2016arXiv160606356H. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2798311. S2CID 16125632.
  52. ^ Mostrous, Alexi; Bridge, Mark; Gibbons, Katie (15 November 2017). "Russia used Twitter bots and trolls 'to disrupt' Brexit vote". The Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  53. ^ "Russian Twitter accounts promoted Brexit ahead of EU referendum – Times newspaper". Reuters. 15 November 2017. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  54. ^ Bastos, Marco T.; Mercea, Dan (10 October 2017). "The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News". Social Science Computer Review. 37 (1): 38–54. doi:10.1177/0894439317734157. ISSN 0894-4393. S2CID 59516834. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 7 July 2019.
  55. ^ "Twitter Bots Helped Trump and Brexit Win, Economic Study Says". Bloomberg News. 23 May 2019. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  56. ^ Gorodnichenko, Yuriy; Pham, Tho; Talavera, Oleksandr (2018). Social Media, Sentiment and Public Opinions: Evidence from #Brexit and #USElection (Report). National Bureau of Economic Research. doi:10.3386/w24631. S2CID 13933018. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  57. ^ "Brexit: Foreign far-right Twitter users 'manipulated debate'". BBC News. 12 March 2019. Archived from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  58. ^ "Brexit-Twitter". F-Secure Blog. 12 March 2019. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2019.
  59. ^ The Sunday Times
  60. ^ a b "We need to talk about where Brexit funder Arron Banks gets his money". openDemocracy. 17 April 2018. Archived from the original on 11 November 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  61. ^ "What we learned about Arron Banks at the fake news inquiry". openDemocracy. 12 June 2018. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  62. ^ "Arron Banks and Brexit's offshore secrets". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 3 May 2019. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  63. ^ a b c "Arron Banks and Brexit's offshore secrets". openDemocracy. 12 April 2018. Archived from the original on 9 February 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  64. ^ Cadwalladr, Carole (16 June 2018). "Arron Banks, Brexit and the Russia connection". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  65. ^ David D. Kirkpatrick; Matthew Rosenberg (29 June 2018). "Russians Offered Business Deals to Brexit's Biggest Backer". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 29 June 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  66. ^ Beangstrom, Patsy (27 July 2018). "Brexit bankroller linked to city mines". DFA. Archived from the original on 18 December 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  67. ^ "Exclusive: Court documents claim new Arron Banks links with Russia". Channel 4 News. 20 July 2018. Archived from the original on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  68. ^ "Southern Rock Insurance Company Ltd 2015 accounts | Reinsurance | Audit". Scribd. Archived from the original on 31 March 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  69. ^ "Newsnight – 08/11/2018". BBC iPlayer. Archived from the original on 18 November 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  70. ^ Arron Banks: Did the Brexit campaigner use offshore money? – BBC Newsnight. BBC Newsnight. 12 November 2018. Archived from the original on 18 November 2020. Retrieved 18 March 2022 – via YouTube.
  71. ^ David Pegg, 'Met to take no further action over Leave.EU spending breaches Archived 2019-10-19 at the Wayback Machine', The Guardian (13 September 2019).
  72. ^ 'UPDATE: lnvestigation into Leave.EU Archived 2019-11-01 at the Wayback Machine' (13 September 2019).
  73. ^ P.A. Media (24 September 2019). "No evidence Leave. EU and Arron Banks broke law, says crime agency". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 24 September 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
  74. ^ Tom Harper, Caroline Wheeler, Richard Kerbaj and (17 November 2019). "Revealed: the Russia report". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0956-1382. Archived from the original on 17 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  75. ^ "U.K. Delays Russian Interference Report Until After Election". Time. Archived from the original on 8 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  76. ^ "Russian meddling report – dissident's widow goes to law". The Guardian. Reuters. 15 November 2019. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 16 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  77. ^ "Bureau of Investigative Journalism fundraises to take the UK Government to court over Russian Report". www.journalism.co.uk. 14 November 2019. Archived from the original on 17 November 2019. Retrieved 17 November 2019.
  78. ^ a b Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (21 July 2020). Report on 'Russia'. p. 44. Archived from the original on 16 January 2021. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  79. ^ a b c Mackinnon, Amy (21 July 2020). "4 Key Takeaways From the British Report on Russian Interference". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  80. ^ "UK 'top target' for Russia, says report". BBC News. 21 July 2020. Archived from the original on 21 July 2020. Retrieved 21 July 2020.
  81. ^ "Tory donor's husband 'given $8m by Kremlin-linked oligarch'". the Guardian. 21 September 2020. Archived from the original on 22 May 2021. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  82. ^ "Revealed: Electoral Commission's private concerns about Russian Tory donors". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  83. ^ "Pandora Papers: Questions over Tory donations by ex-Russian minister's wife". BBC News. 4 October 2021. Archived from the original on 6 November 2021. Retrieved 6 November 2021.
[edit]
  • Bastos, M. T., and Mercea, D. (2017). The Brexit Botnet and User-Generated Hyperpartisan News. Social Science Computer Review
  • R. Booth et al., 'Russia used hundreds of fake accounts to tweet about Brexit, data shows' (14 November 2017) Guardian
  • M. Burgess, 'Facebook claims Russia paid for 3 ads around Brexit – costing 73p' (13 December 2017) Wired
  • E. McGaughey, 'Could Brexit be void?' (2018) 29(3) King's Law Journal 331 and Verfassungsblog
  • House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, 'Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim Report' (July 2018) ch 5, Russian influence in political campaigns
  • US Committee on Foreign Relations, Minority Report, 'Putin's Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security' (2018)