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Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson has written to foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt accusing the Tories of 'deafening silence' over alleged Russian interference in the EU referendum and other UK polls.

The Government today blamed the Kremlin for a wave of cyber attacks - including an attempt to hack the global chemical weapons watchdog investigating the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

But shadow digital secretary Tom Watson has highlighted the absence of any comments on alleged attempts by the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 EU referendum.

In a letter to Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt he said: "The silence from the UK government on these critical issues is deafening and is all the more surprising given your robust attacks on Russian interference elsewhere.

It is impossible to understand how the UK can be dedicating so much time and resource to investigating infiltration by Putin’s regime around the world and ignoring glaring concerns here at home."

(Image: Cultura RF)

The deputy Labour leader pointed out that all the evidence of Russian meddling had come from investigative journalism, the electoral commission and parliamentary committees rather than the Government.

He asked Mr Hunt to confirm whether any investigation is being undertaken by the UK intelligence services and other authorities into Russian interference in the UK.

Mr Watson, who has repeatedly called for a Mueller-style full public inquiry into Russian interference in the referendum with the power to force unwilling participants to co-operate, asked in his letter if the Foreign Secretary would grant one.

He insisted that his concerns were not connected to a desire to undermine the result of the 2016 referendum but instead that the issue was about "defending our democracy".

Mr Watson added: "We know that the Leave campaign broke legal spending limits, although we have not yet had any clarification about where the money donated by their biggest funder, Aaron Banks, came from.

"Banks is known to have visited the Russian embassy multiple times in the run up to the EU referendum.

"We know that Russian twitter accounts active during the US presidential election were also active during the EU referendum.

"As many as 150,000 Russian linked Twitter accounts were tweeting about Brexit . We know that Russia’s media outlets here in the UK, RT and Sputnik, offered “systematically one-sided coverage” of the referendum."

Banks has consistently denied receiving money from Russia but the source of his wealth has been under scrutiny since he gave £9m to Leave.EU.

Mr Banks said any suggestions Leave.EU received financial help from Russia was "complete, absolute garbage".

He said of the visits to the Russian Embassy that he had met diplomats from across the world as well as "briefing" the US State Department in Washington.

"So if we are Russian spies we must be American spies too," he said.

Mr Watson said of the Government's silence: "It is astounding, particularly given the tough words from the Prime Minister in the wake of the Salisbury attack earlier this year, that none of this information has come to light thanks to the Government," he said.

Today Jeremy Hunt said Russia could face further sanctions in the wake of "hard evidence" the Russian military tried to hack the global chemical weapons watchdog investigating the Salisbury nerve agent attack.

British intelligence helped thwart the operation, which was launched in April, a month after the Salisbury Novichok poisoning which targeted former Russian spy Sergei Skripal .

Details were revealed on Thursday, hours after the UK Government accused the GRU of carrying out a wave of other cyber attacks across the globe.

Asked what actions, beyond words, the UK will take over Russia's cyber activity, Mr Hunt said the first action is to expose it.

"The words matter because there are countries all over the world that are hearing both sides of the story - they're hearing what the Russians say as well," he said.

"This is the evidence - that what we are getting from Russia is fake news, and here is the hard evidence of Russian military activity.

"But of course it will go beyond that, and that is why we will be discussing with our allies what further sanctions should be imposed.

"We will also be discussing how we need - working with our friends and allies - to counter this pattern of cyber attacks, which is the new type of attack that the whole world is having to deal with."

Officials in the Netherlands, where the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is based, said four Russians had been expelled after the alleged cyber strike.

The UK Government also accused one of those GRU officers escorted out of the Netherlands of targeting the Malaysian investigation into the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 when over 300 people travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur died.

Read Tom Watson's letter in full:

Foreign Secretary

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

King Charles Street

Westminster

London

SW1A 2AH

4th October 2018

Re: Russian interference in the UK

Dear Foreign Secretary,

On Monday the former UK national security adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant warned that Russian cyber-attacks are now one of the greatest threats to the survival of liberal world order.

Yesterday the Atlantic Council published a paper entitled Democracy in Crosshairs which describes how the current Russian regime and other authoritarian states seek to feed money into our politics to influence and subvert it.

Today the Government has lain out clearly the evidence that the Russian GRU intelligence service has been orchestrating a string of global hacks around the world including the hack of the Democratic Party's HQ in 2016 which went on to have a profound impact on that year’s presidential election.

You have said that the GRU’s actions are “reckless and indiscriminate: they try to undermine and interfere in elections in other countries; they are even prepared to damage Russian companies and Russian citizens. This pattern of behaviour demonstrates their desire to operate without regard to international law or established norms and to do so with a feeling of impunity and without consequences.”

I agree entirely with this sentiment.

Yet despite today’s detailed statement from the Government about investigations into the Putin regime’s interference elsewhere in the world we have heard nothing from your Government about investigations into Russian attempts to influence elections here in the UK, most specifically in the EU referendum.

(Image: AFP)

Over the past two years through the investigative work of journalists such as Carole Cadwalladr and through investigations undertaken by the electoral commission and political committees here and in the US we know a little about what happened during the referendum campaign.

We know that the Leave campaign broke legal spending limits, although we have not yet had any clarification about where the money donated by their biggest funder, Aaron Banks, came from. Banks is known to have visited the Russian embassy multiple times in the run up to the EU referendum. We know that Russian twitter accounts active during the US presidential election were also active during the EU referendum. As many as 150,000 Russian linked Twitter accounts were tweeting about Brexit . We know that Russia’s media outlets here in the UK, RT and Sputnik, offered “systematically one-sided coverage” of the referendum.

It is astounding, particularly given the tough words from the Prime Minister in the wake of the Salisbury attack earlier this year, that none of this information has come to light thanks to the Government.

Earlier in the summer the Parliamentary DCMS select committee published an interim report that said the Government urgently needed to confirm what our intelligence services were doing in response to reports of Russian interference in the referendum. The Government has not responded.

The response from other authorities has been similarly disappointing. In July the electoral commission referred the Vote Leave campaign to the police after finding that they had broken spending controls during the referendum. Now, four months on from that referral, the Metropolitan Police have just confirmed that “no investigation has started at this stage.”

The silence from the UK government on these critical issues is deafening and is all the more surprising given your robust attacks on Russian interference elsewhere.

It is impossible to understand how the UK can be dedicating so much time and resource to investigating infiltration by Putin’s regime around the world and ignoring glaring concerns here at home.

This is not about undermining the result of the 2016 referendum. This is about defending our democracy and protecting ourselves from foreign infiltration and influence.

Can you therefore confirm whether any investigation is being undertaken by our intelligence services and other authorities into Russian interference in the UK? If it is not will you instruct the security services and other relevant bodies to begin one?

I have called for a Mueller-style full public inquiry into Russian interference in the referendum with the power to force unwilling participants to co-operate. Does the Government oppose such an inquiry or will you grant one?

During her conference speech this week the Prime Minister vowed that the Conservatives would always act in the national interest. To stay true to that word we must be investigating these claims.

I look forward to your response confirming the Government is doing so.

Yours sincerely,

Tom Watson MP

Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport