"From Russia with love: How damaging is the 'Russia..." Topic

…. Report' for the UK?

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

The report was unveiled on Tuesday, six months later than originally planned. That release date was scuppered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to dissolve parliament after calling a snap election, thus delaying its publication.

The crux of the matter is that the report could not be made public while the ISC was in limbo…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Nothing says love like the gift of perfume.

Of course there appears to be no evidence of meddling in the Brexit referendum. Though one might cynically wonder that absence of evidence is not itself absence of evidence and particularly when those in power believe the right decision was made….

I think there were attempts at meddling around the edges of the Scottish referendum vote and as much as the First Minister protests about Scottish values being entirely at odds with Putin's Russia I don't expect to see them holding themselves up to the microscope anytime soon either. Scottish opposition's response was just raging hypocrisy. Though the irony is that at least a certain section of pro-Independence Scots started watching RTV because it was wasn't biased like the BBC. RTV's anti-NATO stance seemed to go down well – despite the SNP's alleged position on remaining a member.

For those of you able to access it The Salisbury Poisonings BBC TV series is a good watch. Perhaps surprisingly since it focuses almost on the public health response.

"Meddling", it's been going on since the beginning of civilization. It's what governments do. They meddle with us, and we meddle with them. The press needs to stop being crybabies about it. Like they're one to talk with all their highly biased meddling. ;-)

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

There is considerable blue water between say discrete, but entirely legal funding of certain NGOs, provision of foreign language media services, or even foreign politicians voicing an opinion on another states internal decision making, and active disinformation campaigns run by foreign intelligence agencies for the express purpose of destabilising a countries economic process.

The 'media heat' in this case almost entirely revolves around the issue of the reports release and the belief that for some it would contain a smoking gun that Russia ran an active disinformation programme with the express desire of seeing the UK leave the EU, weakening said body and, leaving the UK exposed, and creating a period of general chaos and instability.

I've spent some time reading the report, it looks more like newspaper article than serious investigation. No real facts, so I guess you're right that it is about why it wasn't published before – very similar to infamous Mueller report.
In both cases ruling party is hiding (or looks like hiding) smth, opposition expects a revelation that will topple ruling authorities, and then nothing happens.

However, unlike US case, there's a lot of confirmed contributions to certain party funds from both pro- and anti-Putin crooks, happily living in UK. I'd be very glad if all of themw will be sent home together with their stolen money, but I guess it is not happening.

As for influence – in theory, you may say that I'm influencing 10k audience when I'm writing on this site and showing different position to the users mainstream views. Disclaimer – I was on this site before you've ever heard about Putin ;)

Actually, Barin, here in the USA there are lots of confirmed money paid for the Russian fiction too, from both a major opposition political party, as well as the FBI.

Thanks!.

Amicalement
Armand