In London Found no Evidence of Russia's Influence on British Policy
OREANDA-NEWS The British Cabinet has prepared a response to Parliament's recommendations to pay particular attention to Russian attempts to influence policy in the United Kingdom. The government noted that there is no evidence of any effective foreign intervention at the moment.
A report on the threat of "fake news" and foreign interference was prepared in July by the Committee on digital technology, culture, sports and media of the UK Parliament. As a result of the report, the Parliament prepared 52 recommendations for the government. However, the Cabinet of Ministers refused to perform most of them.
Four recommendations of the Parliament belonged to the probable attempts of Russia to interfere in the internal political processes in the UK with the help of cyber-attacks, fake news and misinformation.
In particular, the parliamentarians reminded the Cabinet that in November last year, Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of interfering in the elections.
"Since the attack in Salisbury in March, we have documented the spread by Russia of at least 38 false and misleading news related to this event. At the same time, we want to emphasize again that the government has no evidence that misinformation from foreign actors, including Russia, had an impact on the democratic processes in the UK," the government said.
At the same time, the British Cabinet noted that London continues to cooperate with foreign partners in order to counter the campaign of misinformation on the part of Russia. In addition, the government intends to spend £100 million in the next five years on measures to combat interference in order to counter Russian policy. These funds will be used to study cyber threats and work with non-governmental organizations.
"The government will monitor the hostile activities of States on the Internet and take further steps in accordance with our commitment to maintain freedom of speech and General regulations on data protection, to identify and deter hostile disinformation," the Cabinet concluded.
In early October, the Financial Times reported that Russian military intelligence in July 2015 launched a cyber-attack on the British Islamic TV channel. "They had complete control. They could see everything we were doing. For many weeks we could not send or receive emails. We felt helpless, " the newspaper source said. According to this information, the consequences of the cyber-attack were observed for five months, until the British intelligence helped to eliminate them.
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