MPS sue PM over Russian election attack
A c r o s s- p a r t y b a n d o f MPS and peers have filed legal proceedings against the UK government, accusing ministers of failing to protect the UK’S democracy against Russian interference.
The claimants, backed by a former national security adviser, have accused the Prime Minister of wanting to “keep us in the dark” about Russian attacks on British elections and referendums.
I t c o mes a f te r t h e I n t e l l i - gence and Security Committee (ISC) concluded, in its longdelayed repor t published in July, that ministers had “badly under-estimated the response required to the Russian threat”.
It suggests there was no proper investigation into whether there had been successful Russian interference in the Brexit vote in 2016 despite “credible op en source commentar y” indicating Moscow’s influence in campaigns relating to the Scottish independence referendum two years earlier.
The findings, published in July after being held-up by the 2019 general election and the slow process of appointing a successor committee, have united a group of parliamentarians who have confirmed they have launched legal action against the UK government in what they believe is the first nationa l s e c u r i t y c h a l l e n g e o f i t s kind.
The claimants – Liberal Democrat peer Lord Strasburger, Labour MPS B en Bradshaw and Chris Bryant, former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP, the SNP’S Alyn Smith MP and exConservative Baroness Wheatcroft – are seeking to judicially review what they say has been government inaction over Russian interference, claiming it has breached its obligation under Article 3, Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The protocol requires that free elections are
held “under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in their choice of legislature”.
In the heavily-redacted ISC report, the committee said there was “credible open source com
mentary” indicating Russian influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence vote, but it was only after the “hack and leak” operation in the Democratic National Committee in the US – with the
emails made public a month after the 2016 EU referendum – that the Government “belatedly realised the level of threat which Russia could pose in this area”.