UK Prime Minister Burnham: “Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum”

[Financial News]  British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has officially acknowledged that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit (the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, or EU) referendum. This is the first time a sitting British prime minister has clearly stated that Russia interfered in the Brexit vote.
In an interview on a podcast on the 11th (local time), Prime Minister Burnham said that after taking office, he had confirmed whether Russia interfered in the 2016 vote. “I received a clear answer that there had been Russian interference,” he said, “We have been too passive in responding and failed to adequately inform the public about attempts by foreign powers to interfere in our political process and the extent of those efforts.”
Prime Minister Burnham warned that Russian election interference was not limited to the United Kingdom. He said he had recently met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss the issue, adding, “False information and fake news originating in Russia are also being disseminated in German political circles.”
He went on to stress, “Voters in Germany and France, too, must recognize that parts of their countries’ politics are being stirred up and manipulated by Russia, a hostile state.”
Britain Unbound, a pro-Brexit campaign group, immediately pushed back against Prime Minister Burnham’s remarks. The group called them “a crude attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the decision made by the British people in 2016,” and criticized the claim, saying, “Foreign interference in elections is unacceptable, but there is no basis for saying that Russian interference changed the outcome of the vote, and it is insulting to claim that voters were easily duped.”
In 2020, the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) criticized the government in a report for failing to properly assess or respond to the threat of Russian interference in Brexit, but it did not reach a conclusion about the impact on the result. The Kremlin and the Russian Foreign Ministry have fully denied the report’s findings, saying, “We do not interfere in other countries’ elections.”


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