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| New British Prime Minister Theresa may with Vladimir Putin last year. |
Labour MPs are ratcheting up pressure on the government to reveal whether Russia interfered in the EU referendum.
Former culture secretary Ben Bradshaw told Business Insider that the "public has a right to know" if the Kremlin attempted to influence the outcome of the Brexit vote in June last year.
He is concerned that Prime Minister Theresa May’s government is not being transparent enough about the issue — particularly now there is acceptance in the US and other European nations that Russia has attempted to meddle in democratic decisions, he said.
Bradshaw pressed the government on the matter in two separate House of Commons debates in December last year, during the second of which he asked the prime minister what is being done to investigate Kremlin interference.
It is a more than reasonable request since we certainly know that Putin wants to break up the EU because he fears their combined power.
And it is not as if there is not any evidence to support this.
Courtesy of Newsweek:
Reports suggested that Russia used its vast intelligence apparatus during the run up to the U.K.’s June referendum on EU membership in favor of the winning “leave” vote. Both RT and Sputnik, English-language news outlets which receive funding from the Kremlin, produced often misleading news coverage that tallied with the campaign urging voters to leave the EU.
Russia is also believed to have leveraged its “troll army”—individuals paid by the Kremlin to produce and promote fake social media content—to focus on messaging around the referendum campaign.
The Russian disinformation campaign may have influenced the vote outcome. Polling in the lead up to the referendum had showed a majority of UK nationals wishing to remain. But as election day neared it became apparent that the race had grown close, and the final vote count resulted in a narrow victory for the leave camp, which won 51.9 percent of the votes compared to 48.1 percent for the remain side.
The Brexit leave vote fits with Russia’s goal of weakening the EU, which it has eyed warily as former Eastern Bloc countries have flocked to join. The U.K.’s withdrawal will leave the EU without one of the three largest economic and military powers in Europe.
Please, if Russian interference could convince the voters in America to elect the worst president since the founding of the country, how hard would it have been for them to convince British voters to throw away their future?
Source http://ift.tt/2msqE57
