Boris warns of Putin meddling in election

RUSSIAN sabotage of the General Election is a “realistic possibility”, Boris Johnson has suggested, adding that Vladimir Putin would “rejoice” if Jeremy Corbyn won on June 8.

The Foreign Secretary said the Russian president was behind cyber attacks on the US and French elections and was trying to “undermine faith in democracy altogether”.

In his first major interview of the election campaign, Mr Johnson also suggested Brussels could end up owing Britain money for the Brexit “divorce bill” rather than the other way around, as he accused the EU of trying to “bleed this country white”.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives announced plans to give users of Facebook and other social media sites a legal right to have postings made before they were 18 destroyed and deleted from the internet. The Tory manifesto, to be published next week, will also promise powers to fine internet companies if they fail to stop people from “unintentionally” accessing pornography and extremist material. Mr Johnson travelled to south Wales to begin campaigning in earnest, and told The Daily Telegraph of his concerns that state-sponsored Russian hackers could try to influence the outcome of the election.

“I think it is a realistic possibility,” he said. “We think that is what he did in America, it’s blatantly obvious that’s what he did in France [where incoming president Emmanuel Macron’s emails were hacked]; in the western Balkans he is up to all sorts of sordid enterprises, so we have to be vigilant.”

Asked if Mr Putin would interfere to help Labour, he said: “Putin would rejoice to see British defences weakened, Britain’s foreign policy become less active, to see us detached from the United States. That would be grist to Putin’s mill, that would be just what he wants.”

Last night a survey of 40,000 voters by Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory donor, combined with analysis of census data, found the Tories are headed for a majority of 162 to 180 seats – a larger landslide than Labour’s in 1997.