By Andrew MacAskill
LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Russia intervened in the 2016 Brexit vote, warning French and German voters against Moscow-backed efforts to influence their politics.
Burnham, who took over as leader of the United Kingdom in July and said last month that Britain might consider joining the European Union in the future, is the first British prime minister to openly say there was evidence of Russian interference in the referendum a decade ago.
“I asked the question when I came to Downing Street: was there Russian interference in the 2016 referendum? And I got the clear answer that yes, there was,” Burnham said in an interview with The Rest Is Politics podcast published on Sunday.
Burnham did not explain how he believed Russia interfered in the referendum and gave no details of the evidence based on this statement.
The Russian Embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russia has previously denied interference in the Brexit vote, portraying Britain as being in the grip of anti-Russian hysteria.
Burnham’s comments mark a departure from those of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “who campaigned to leave the EU, and said in 2020 that there was no evidence of Russian interference in the referendum.
Britons voted 52% to 48% in favor of leaving the EU in 2016, plunging the country into its biggest political crisis since World War II.
Burnham said voters in European democracies need to be better informed about efforts to disrupt their politics.
“I mean, it’s important now that these things are clearly recorded and, I believe, help German and French voters understand that some of this policy is instigated by our enemies, namely Russia,” he said.
The UK government has failed to establish “whether Russia interfered in the 2016 referendum on EU membership, according to a 2020 report from Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee.”
The report also reveals that Russia sought to influence Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum, in which voters rejected independence.
Burnham said last month he could campaign to bring Britain back into the EU at the next general election, reopening the country’s contentious debate over its relationship with the continent.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, editing by Alexandra Hudson)
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