The ISC Russia Report - Exploiting a Breakdown of Political Legitimacy

The belated release of the ISC Russia Report (accessible here, released on the 21^st July 2020), which was ready for publication last October but sat on by Johnson’s government until long after the December election and UK’s exit from the European Union on 31^st January this year, has raised important questions about the state of British intelligence in the modern age of disinformation warfare.

The spectre of Russian interference in western politics and its potential effect on election outcomes has been discussed extensively, but little has been done to combat what is seen as a covert erosion of democratic institutions in the west through the targeted spread of disinformation and the clandestine support of institutions that directly or indirectly benefit the Kremlin’s objectives. In this context, the ISC report makes several points that may explain the reluctance on behalf of the UK government to publish its findings, notably that:

• There was little intelligence oversight into potential Russian meddling in the EU referendum or UK general elections, because the issue was seen as a “hot potato”, which no agency wanted to take responsibility for. Agencies did not see it as their responsibility to engage with issues related to UK democratic processes, which the report slams as “illogical”.
• Even in the aftermath of the revelations of Russian interference in the Scottish Independence Referendum, support for the French Front National, and attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential elections, there was still no retrospective review into the possibility of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum.
• In focusing disproportionately on terror-related threats, UK intelligence agencies allocated fewer and fewer resources to monitoring hostile state actions, and this has left us “playing catch up” to Russian espionage tactics.
• Russian elites have used London as a base for many operations linked to the Russian state. The UK government welcomed Russian money, particularly flowing into London, with little to no oversight over where that money was coming from. The “London laundromat” has allowed illicit finances to be recycled and legitimised, with patronage from the British establishment. Indeed, according to the report, these illicit funds funnelled through the oligarchs were welcomed “with open arms”.
• 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.

The Kremlin, the seat of Putin's power in Moscow.

Given the extensive evidence and widespread knowledge that Russia is adept at disinformation warfare, and especially considering that the UK is quite clearly a top priority target of Russian influence in the West (let’s not forget that the Salisbury poisoning of Sergei Skripal in 2018 was a Kremlin-sponsored chemical attack on British territory that killed a British civilian), the lack of focus on Hostile State Actions (as actions against foreign states is referred to in the intelligence community) in British intelligence is surprising.

An extract from the Russia Report, detailing the lack of investigation into Russian interference in the EU referendum campaign.

The report does note that MI5, GCHQ, and SIS (MI6) have always had to juggle multiple threats in determining where to apportion their resources and attention, but notes that in 2006, the year that Alexander Litvinenko was assassinated in London, MI5 had devoted 92% of its effort to counter-terrorism work, with SIS and GCHQ at 33%. Whilst it is reported that the percent of resources allocated to Hostile State Actions has risen again in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the exact split of focus was redacted in the report, and it is acknowledged that British intelligence continues to play catch up in terms of understanding the true reach of Russian influence in western politics.

This makes the assertion that there has been no retrospective review into Russian interference in British politics since 2016 even more damning. In stark contrast, Russian interference in the 2016 election of Donald Trump was investigated by US intelligence and a summary report was released, revealing that the Kremlin had hacked Democrat party servers and leaked damaging files in the run up to the election, potentially swinging opinion towards Donald Trump.

Of course, the extent to which Russian interference swayed the election is extremely debatable, as it is in the UK case, but considering the slim margins by which Trump won the election (actually receiving fewer overall votes but winning through the electoral college) and the Brexit vote passed (52% - 48%), any swing of the needle as a result of foreign state meddling should be investigated. The fact that no such investigation was instigated by any of the British intelligence services when there is such credible circumstantial evidence is damning, especially considering Boris Johnson’s suppression of the report upon its initial attempted release.

There should be no legitimate reason to suppress or prevent an investigation into foreign state meddling into UK democratic processes. As the report clearly states, if an extensive investigation found no interference, it would increase public confidence in electoral mechanisms. Regardless of reality, this obfuscation on behalf of the Johnson government, at a time of exceptional political turmoil in the country, will raise eyebrows and suggestions that he, or other current ministers or advisors, are a part of the British establishment that welcomed illegitimate Russian money into the UK “with open arms”.  

"The London Laundromat" - recycling dirty Russian money and enriching many benefactors in the British establishment.

To be clear, this report does not suggest that that is the case, and neither am I. There is no evidence of that. But with no thorough independent investigation into what we know is a credible threat, conspiracy is bound to grow, and further undermine the legitimacy of the UK government administration.

What matters here is what we consider to be our national security priorities. Since 9/11, counter-terror has overwhelmingly been the focus of British intelligence. This makes sense, as we have many examples, including in the years following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, that terrorism poses the greatest threat to life of the British public. But the terror threat in the UK is most significantly a result of home-grown terror cells rather than foreign bodies. As a result, the responsibility for tackling this can, and should, be more widely distributed. Conventional policing, social work, programmes like Prevent that allow the reporting of at-risk individuals, and community action can supplement covert intelligence operations to reduce the risk of homegrown terrorism affecting British lives.

In contrast, these same actors that can be so effective in reducing the threat of terrorism have very little control over hostile state interference in domestic politics. Whilst the operations undertaken by the Kremlin in western democracies has less direct impact on human life, it can sow political divisions and cause havoc in domestic politics and between western allies. That is its goal, and its long-term effect may be far more insidious than the connected but disparate terror attacks we have seen across the UK in recent years.

And it is not just Russia that has been utilising new technologies and methodologies to target western democracies. As the controversy surrounding Huawei’s 5g ban in the UK also demonstrates, a brewing cold war between the west and China threatens increased tit-for-tat escalations and antagonisms. Following Trump’s ill-advised assassination of Iranian General Qasim Soleimani in Iraq in January, it has been reported that an informant who gave the US information on Soleimani’s movements has been executed (on the 20^th July, one day before the release of the UK Russia Report). That short-lived crisis resulted in the death of 176 civilians when Iran unintentionally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane whilst on heightened alert for further US attacks on military targets in Iran.

The era of great power politics is not over. Escalating international tension as a result of the wave of authoritarian political movements across the world threatens a return to Cold War realpolitik if we do not take these threats seriously and respond accordingly.

The findings of the ISC Russia report demonstrate the imperative for a thorough investigation into any potential interference in British politics by external powers, and the need for a shift in the intelligence community to address the growing threat of state-sponsored meddling in our political institutions.

The spread of increasingly reactionary politics across many western democracies can be in-part attributed to a feeling of disenfranchisement, of large groups of a population feeling left behind by political elites in capital cities. There are many reasons for this, the vast majority of them domestic in nature, and they should be addressed. But if hostile states can infiltrate our democratic systems by feeding these feelings of disenfranchisement, they can widen an already growing divide. They can turn a crack in the surface into a sinkhole that cannot be plugged.

As the report suggests, British intelligence is currently playing catch up in this new great game of cyber warfare, disinformation spread, and the slow erosion of democracy. That starts with an open, honest discussion of where international connections influence domestic institutions at an individual, organisational, and societal level.

Countering this encroachment, both in our domestic politics and with an eye on our international competitors, will be essential to the survival of the United Kingdom as we know it.