The revival of the “Putindunnit” Brexit narrative demonstrates how politicians continue to misunderstand and misrepresent the scale, impact but above all goals of Russian political interference.

The Russian trolls, bots and commentators can gleefully exploit this target-rich environment

The Russian trolls, bots and commentators can gleefully exploit this target-rich environment

Andy Burnham, perhaps as ever wanting to please his interlocutors of the moment, told Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on their The Rest is Politics podcast that when he looked into whether there had been Russian interference in the 2016 vote, “I’ve had the clear answer that, yes, there was.”

The Prime Minister added that: “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.”

Let’s set aside the fact that, far from being too coy, politicians of every shade have seen supposed Russian disinformation in all sorts of reverses. More to the point, was he suggesting that Brexit was not the will of the British people but of the Russian Kremlin? Certainly, that was what many assumed. Still, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty, when pushed for specifics by the BBC’s Justin Webb, had to admit that that while the Russians had “attempted........

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