Burnham Says It Is ‘Clear’ Russia Interfered With Brexit Vote

Andy Burnham has said Russia did interfere with the Brexit referendum and warned that similar activities were taking place in France and Germany.
The prime minister told The Rest is Politics podcast that upon arriving in No 10, he had asked about possible Russian interference in the 2016 vote, adding: “I’ve had the clear answer that, yes, there was.”
“I think we’ve been too much on the back foot on that actually and we haven’t informed people sufficiently about the extent to which people are seeking to disrupt the political process from overseas,” he added.
Burnham did not provide further details about the type or extent of Moscow’s activity during the Brexit referendum.
Asked about the prime minister’s comments on BBC Breakfast, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said he wouldn’t “get into specifics” of Russian interference in the 2016 vote when pushed for evidence.
“Russia clearly has attempted to interfere on a number of our democratic processes,” Doughty told the BBC. “They’re engaged in information warfare, they’re spending £1.5bn this year alone on disinformation and propaganda.”
Doughty also denied that Burnham was raising the issue of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum because he wants to rejoin the EU.
He said: “This is a broader point he is making about Russian attempts to destabilise and interfere in our democracy.”
Britain Unbound, a pro-Brexit campaign group, said Burnham’s comments were “another crude attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the decision that the British people made in 2016”.
It said that foreign interference in UK elections was “obviously unacceptable” but added: “There is no good reason to believe that Russian intervention influenced the outcome of the referendum in 2016.
“It is also insulting to suggest that voters were so easily duped.”