Russia’s online “troll factory” may have used software devised by a UK-taught developer in order to sway the Brexit referendum, it can be revealed.

The head of a global conglomerate has accused the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency (IRA) of “stealing” code his company created before embarking on an alleged campaign to meddle in major votes around the world.

Javier Pérez Dolset said he was “99 per cent” convinced the secretive agency – which the Mueller Report last month found had illegally interfered in the 2016 United States’ presidential election – used software he helped develop to carry out Twitter trolling on an industrial scale.