UK 'playing catch up' against Russian interference | Hacker News Reader

UK 'playing catch up' against Russian interference

bbc.co.uk

55 pointsMindGods64 comments

I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring. Not saying China and Russia aren't trying to spy and influence the US and UK, but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them and many other countries and have a big documented history of doing so. So these relentless articles on how bad Russia and China are for doing what everybody is doing seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.

This is because the Russian interference report was published about an hour ago, its a relevant conversation today.

If you can find evidence of the UK messing about with Russian or Chinese elections (if you can call them elections) We can get some Anti-GB articles going.

I think its very difficult to do that. All media articles on snowden and assangle typically tall about their persona rather than illegal actions they've uncovered.

Ofc both sides are doing it, but typically in a conflict you want your side to win ;)

Or at least try and stop the other side from winning, even if they do have loads of cash.

And the irony? They’re using our platforms to do it

Can we start being honest about it then? "The Russians are doing it, and we need to stop them, because we should be the only ones doing it". That's honest. "The Russians are meddling with the divine nature of democratic elections" is fake and shit.

And can we go back to not pretending that there's nationalism and national interests and just ignore the twitter mobs that form when it's suggested? It's obviously true, it's strongly hinted at in these kinds of things, it's evoked in Covid-19 responses, but it must not be said. It's not just not helpful, I believe that having things that are obviously actively done but forbidden to talk about is harmful to everybody's psyche.

Well, some are obviously more successful than others at influencing elections and politics...

The USA are leaving their leadership position, if only thanks to the current administration, shaking things in disarray. Their structural weaknesses were certainly used to that end and put to profit by foreign countries interested getting into that position.

Such a massive change (or tentative change) in geopolitics seldom develops quietly, on either end. Unless one side doesn't react at all.

>> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries to prepare the population for a possible future more frontal conflict or war which I hope will never happen.

It's more about a restart of the cold war than a "frontal" war.

I'm not sure if you can compare Russia's situation with the US or UK. I doubt the wealthy of the US/UK are actually inteligence officers.

Of course UK/US tries to influence the elections in Russia but the warning here is that Russia is more successfull and seems to have more tools than us.

> seems like they're trying to push a negative agenda on these two countries

Ignoring media manipulation seems like a way to allow instability to be promoted. We've seen Russia stir up gun ownership and racial issues in the US, and Scottish independence in the UK.

Regardless of your political stance it's important be be aware there are outside interests manipulating things to cause maximum chaos.

Why chaos? There's benefit, but small fry.

I'd push for Brexit, Scottish independence, and a rift amongst American democrats and Republicans to weaken these states, so that I might bring my power to bear on a now localised objective in a smaller thus weaker state.

It appears to have worked very effectively in the UK. That anybody can be swayed to believe that one is more powerful than two is crazy hard. The Russians, and the move was so masterful that I believe it was the Russians, made it seem easy -

Frame the whole thing as a servile UK being crushed by German industry. Masterful, and as the referendum shows, it worked.

I think we're probably on the same track - I'd consider creating rifts within democracies, and creating rifts between democracies, a kind of chaos.

I find all these anti-Russia and China articles tiring.

The articles will stop once the bad behaviour stops. Don’t hold your breath.

but the US and the UK are doing the same thing to them

Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine?

This is pure false equivalence: it’s not like choosing between a Coke or Pepsi. If the authoritarians succeed in their aims, the future really will be “a boot stamping on a human face - forever”. If you truly believe in peace, all lovers of freedom must vigorously defend democracy now!

> Really? What elections are the West trying to undermine?

Professor Dov H. Levin does a lot of research on this subject and collected accounts of many interventions by both sides. See his papers https://www.dovhlevin.com/research

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_electoral_intervention

Your problem is with the article?

So you have a problem with the fact that after an official UK investigation found deep and troubling Russian interference, newspapers decided to report it?

Actually we need at least one article on how deep UK secret services have been meedling in United States elections. Any more "dossiers" for us from ex-MI6, dear Beeb?

There will be no war with near peer powers since the 'guvners' in City of London likely do no wish to glow in the dark. All these games are to extract even more concessions from the subject classes and play binary political games for plebe entertainment.

I agree with you in the sense that the reporting is insular, holier than thou, faux shock, and silence about our own activities, turning a blind eye, pretense - the reports themselves interference in our perceptions, from our own side - "weapons of mass destruction". Also tedious the way it gets turned into a left vs right weapon - "they won - it was the russians!". Also, it's about as surprising and informative as chickens laying eggs. Actually, I was going to see your point of view, but then argue against it, claiming it's good to be kept up to date, but now I just agree with you.

If the Russian state can merrily kill people on mainland UK in recent years (Alexander Litvinenko) and release nerve agent in Salisbury without recourse, then a sprinkling of election time cyber ops is the last of our worries.

Articles like this are woeful. Am I to believe that of ~200 countries in the world, only Russia has means and ability to interfere in foreign elections?

It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process. Germany, France, Spain and Italy have a lot more to gain and lose depending on the outcome. America has at least as much at stake as Russia and has a much more successful history of foreign meddling.

>It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process

The argument I've seen is that Putin wants a weaker (or even no) EU, and getting the UK to leave is an important part of this strategy. I'm no political expert, but on the face of it this makes sense to me.

Every country outside Europe would like to see a weaker EU. China, India, America and a fair chunk of the middle east and Africa would all be unhappy to see a new unified superpower emerge with a united military.

The idea that Russia has especial interests in this area is questionable. The US has more to gain from the EU breaking up than Russia. Current US president would love to be negotiating with smaller, weaker countries than the EU bureaucracy.

That's looking at it only from an adversarial lens. There are other lenses.

Well, there's at least one obvious motive: getting the EU a little more busy with itself so it may not have enough energy for other matters.

The mess it plunges the EU, having to deal with this one huge internal issue, rather than having more resources on other external topics (such as, what's happening on the border region with Russia, with the Middle East and with Africa).

> It isn't even obvious why Russia especially would care about the UK electoral process.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

Why would someone who cannot even think why Russia might want to interfere in the UK’s politics, even comment and reveal their ignorance to the world.

I mean, you aren’t even saying they did/did not interfere. You’re saying that you cannot even imagine why Russia would care about the UK.

Conversely that is exactly why this kind of threat is important to address. There will always be bad actors looking to attack. It could be Russia, a none state actor, or any of hundreds of other players. If we are vulnerable then that is a problem.

Also the UK is a nuclear power with a history of power projection. That makes it different to a lot of those other countries.

The thrust of today’s report is not about the existence of Russian interference.

It is about the inaction of successive British governments.

When you don't like the results of an election or a referendum, now you can blame Russia and China. Can you imagine the losing side easily accept the fact after the POTUS election this year without blaming Russia or China?

You miss the forest for thr trees Gentlemen.

The article is about the fact that UK intelligence and government both know that Russia interfered in referendum on the side of Brexit. Obvious leave won, and if they were to find any concrete evidence of this interference, it would damage credebility of UK Leave even further, on top of existing breaches of electoral law and populism / trumpism.

"There has been no assessment of Russian interference in the EU referendum and this goes back to nobody wanting to touch the issue with a 10-foot pole" This is hilarious.

The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum. MPs, largely Labour ones, who refused to accept the Brexit result were chucked out by their electorate.

Unless you intend to argue that the Russians also swayed that too.

They certainly stoked the fireplace that is brexit and kept winding people up about it

Are you saying the electorate are somehow unable to cope with an idea being mentioned online? Ridiculous.

Of course they did. They stoke issues that already exist, they're not invented. Just like how the Russians have been stoking race-issues in the US for decades.

Are Antifa and BLM Russian plots to destabilise the US? They certainly have that signature [0], that doesn't mean they aren't valid movements.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q

By their electorate. The Tories won a majority of seats on considerably less than a majority of the vote; the election wasn't an endorsement of Brexit any more than Trump's win off a collapse of the Democratic vote in the rustbelt was an endorsement of sexism and xenophobia.

But UKIP split the vote. From memory, the combination of UKIP and Conservative total votes was > 50%.

The Conservatives got 43.6% and UKIP got 0.1%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_el...

NB You perhaps meant the Brexit party, who got 2%, rather than UKIP

I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections - i.e the election to get the referendum and the election following the referendum.

In the 2017 General Election the Conservatives got 42.3% of vote and UKIP 1.8%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_el...

Note sure how a Yes/No referendum can have a split vote?

a) I meant 2017 - the post referendum election as I wrote b) I said from memory - my memory was obviously wrong. Please forgive me oh great one.

> the combination of UKIP and Conservative total votes was > 50%

This is a false statement. Even if you include the larger Brexit party as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_el...

I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections - i.e the election to get the referendum and the election following the referendum.

> I was referring to the 2015 and 2016 elections

But your claim isn't true for 2015 either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_Kingdom_general_el...

36.8 + 12.6 = 49.4%

And there wasn't any election in 2016. Do you mean the referendum? You cannot 'split the vote' in a yes/no referendum, can you?

Your claim is also not true for 2017, before you try that one as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_el...

42.3 + 1.8 = 44.1%

sorry 2017, a typo - I will chastise immediately

And it's by far and away the largest grouping in parliament. The UK's regional politics make it something that isn't going to be binary.

I'm not "trying" anything. I'm just sick of the bs around Ruskies telling people to Brexit.

I did say "from memory".

Anyway - I voted remain. I just can't stand the Ruskies thing and the constant revisiting of the referendum result with different angles of "but it's not valid" used each time.

In the 2015 election the Tories got 36.8% and the Faragists 12.6%, summing to 49.4%; the Tories were at that point more or less neutral on Europe so by no means representing a Brexit constituency.

In 2017 the Tories took 42.3% and the Nuttalls 1.8%, totalling 44.1%. Of course, even at that point the Tories still accommodated some Remain views.

In 2019 with Remainers and the insufficiently fervent purged for the most part, the Tories took 43.6%, Farage 2% and the rump UKIP 0.1% to total 45.7%.

I suppose you could add in the Prods, but that still won't get you to 50%.

I was wrong and I did say "from memory". I should have taken the 30 seconds to look.

My fault.

I think the allegation is that Russia manipulated social media, etc.

Influence does not need to be direct, such as stuffing ballots, to be able to change the outcome.

I think the real lesson of the last 10 years is that the electorate in any democracy needs to be smart, which is... a tall order.

Russia definitely tried to interfere in the 2019 election - the trouble is that they seemed to do so in the wrong direction, trying to help out the anti-Brexit side: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53433523 (People spotted this quite a while ago but the government hasn't commented on it previously.)

It's not clear that Labour were on "the anti-Brexit side":

"If the Labour Party win the General Election they want to renegotiate Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and put it to another public vote alongside the option of Remain."[0]

Perhaps if you think that the public would have voted to Remain, then that's an anti-Brexit policy, but perhaps Putin just liked the idea of the chaos that such a referendum would bring (and possibly the supposed benefit of having Corbyn as PM).

[0] https://home.bt.com/news/latest-news/what-is-labours-brexit-...

Fact check: The first election after the referendum was fought on the basis of executing Brexit and the Conservatives lost their majority.

Yes, you're right. I got my election timeline wrong.

The original Brexit result was pretty much endorsed when the Tories were re-elected in the election after the referendum.

If Labour had competent leadership then you could argue that, as it was they were run by somebody completely out of his depth (and who wanted Brexit).

So UK voted leave because of Russian interference. US got Trump because of Russian interference.

In other words, stuff that happens we don't accept can't possibly be because we are out of touch with public sentiment?

When something happens we agree with, Russian interference must have stopped then?

That’s kind of the point, Russia has weaponised public sentiment through manipulation and misinformation.

Not only would it undermine credibility of UK Leave, but elements of the Conservative party.

The is the same report which the Conservative government took almost 18 months to publish after it was finished [1] (and which the government did what they could to avoid starting). This includes the period during which a Conservative government won a general election on the platform of the very issue which prompted the report in the first place - the Brexit referendum.

And when was it finally released? The day before parliament's summer recess - to minimise accountability and discussion. By the time parliament sits again it will be just 4 months out from a no deal Brexit, meaning that it has only been available for discussion for 8 weeks out of the 4 and a half years that it has had relevance (since the referendum).

And the same report which is due to be scrutinized by a non-partisan Intelligence and Security Committee. The same committee that the prime minster has installed his preferred puppet to chair (who incidentally has no experience in intelligence or security) [2], booting a senior minister who opposed the move out of the party in the process.

The same committee which was once led by a former senior Conservative MP, now independent, who has expressed his anger over there being "no valid reason" to not publish it sooner [3].

This is more than just a bit of spin covering up some incompetence - it's democratic integrity being brushed aside.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53480682 [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53422010 [3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-53488971/grieve-on...

I always say this. If Russia is so amazing at manipulating opinion in western progressive countries, then how come they can’t achieve the same in the neighbouring countries.

Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion?

Why not fix issues in Belorussia?

Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back?

Coming from ex-soviet-state... Our BS meter for Russian meddling is much much higher than in West. We probably get a lot of false-positives too. But better safe than sorry...

Looking from East, West seems terribly naive when it comes to Russian affairs. And it looks like there're a lot of people who hate their society so much that they blindly pick Russia as "greener on the other side" or "enemy of the enemy is my friend".

Westerners seem to trust media and politicians much more too. Over here, the default is that politicians/activists/whatever (be it opposition or government) are lying and that media is supporting their lies. Everything is lies unless proved otherwise. Meanwhile West seems to be much less critical.

> Why have a war in Ukraine, if you can just put your own president in charge? And manipulate everyone’s opinion?

They did and he got removed in a revolution in 2014.

> Why not fix issues in Belorussia?

Belorussia is a dictatorship with a firm grip on the media and public opinion.

> Why not win over all the other ex soviet states back?

Because they didn't forget the occupation, and some others had a war on their hands if they went a bit too much west (Georgia, Ukraine).

More vague fearmongering which just serves to back the security state. Apparently the UK spy agencies had, up to now been too "coy" to get involved in anything political. Oh come on.

So if I'm understanding the article correctly, they didn't find much in the way of specific evidence that Russia was interfering in (say) the Brexit referendum and they're blaming it on the government and security services not looking hard enough? This feels like it's getting worryingly into conspiracy theory territory, especially given the quality of the publicly available claims of Russian interference which this appears to be referencing as proof there must be something there.

Edit: OK, I'm reading through the actual report now and it doesn't reassure. They literally reference the Buzzfeed "From Russia With Blood" piece which relies on the idea that Russia are so good at disguising killings that any death of a Russian-linked person - anything from a heart attack to a suicide of someone showing signs of depression who had made previous attempts - is in fact probably an assasination. This is well into conspiracy theory territory; it's basically unfalsifiable.

Also, it's clear from the report that they know the UK intelligence agencies had a lot of other work on their hands regarding the terrorist threat, and this consumed a substantial amount of the resources that would previously have been dedicated to Russia, so to attribute this to the intelligence services supposedly not wanting to know about Russian interference seems itself like an attempt to interfere with the UK political process.

They didnt find because they avoided looking very hard. Because uk leave vote is such a sensitive issue politically.

That's circular logic.

No it's not. "I didn't find my keys, because I didn't look" isn't circular logic, it's cause and effect. It doesn't mean you'll find your keys if you do look. Circular logic is when you tell me "I'm not going to look for my keys, because there's no evidence that I can find them" - of course you can't find them if you don't look. Which is the official government line:

>The UK government rejected the committee's call for a full assessment by intelligence agencies of potential Russian meddling in the 2016 referendum, saying it had "seen no evidence of successful interference".

They won't investigate, because there's no evidence, and there's no evidence because they chose to ignore the evidence at the time of the referendum - as found by this report.

To bring us back to the key analogy - "I've been walking around with my eyes closed and haven't found my keys, so clearly I shouldn't look for my keys, because I haven't found my keys"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com