Questions raised about meddling by Russia on Brexit

Polls surprised by vote to quit EU

LONDON – Calls are growing for Britain’s intelligence watchdog to investigate whether Russian Twitter bots attempted to influence the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum, in which voters narrowly backed a withdrawal from the European Union.

Mary Creagh, a member of Parliament from the opposition Labour Party, asked Prime Minister Theresa May if the Intelligence and Security Committee would investigate “the Kremlin’s attempts to undermine our democracy.”

May responded that she expected the committee to focus on the issue soon, The Guardian reported.

Earlier this week, May accused Russia of “planting fake stories” to “sow discord in the West.” In her speech to business leaders at a dinner in London, May did not specifically say Russia interfered in U.K. affairs.

President Trump said after meeting in Asia with Russian President Vladimir Putin that he believed Putin’s denial of Moscow meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election despite U.S. intelligence evidence to the contrary.

Trump later said he agreed with the intelligence finding of Russian interference.

Researchers at London’s City University said that in the four weeks before the June 2016 vote for Britain’s exit from the EU, an army of Twitter bots posted 65,000 tweets that showed a “clear slant” towards the campaign to exit the EU. The researchers did not specifically mention Russia.

Brexit passed with 52% support, confounding some polls that predicted it would fail. Britain is currently in contentious talks with the EU on terms of a divorce.

In research published this week, Oxford Internet Institute researcher Yin Yin Lu cross-referred 22.6 million tweets with 2,752 Twitter accounts that the U.S. Senate said came from the Russian Internet Research Agency.

One of the accounts, @TEN_GOP, which has since been suspended, had 16,000 followers and posted a number of tweets in favor of exiting the bloc.

“Russia has repeatedly violated the national airspace of several European countries and mounted a sustained campaign of cyber espionage and disruption,” May told guests at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet on Monday. “This has included meddling in elections and hacking the Danish Ministry of Defense and the Bundestag among many others.”