Russian Interference in UK Politics

Debate between Bob Seely and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but the fact is that today’s Russia is a shadow of the power that was the former Soviet Union.

[Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

There is one important difference: although Russia’s conventional weaponry has been somewhat hollowed out, significant investment is going into it—there is significant investment in active measures—and it still has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. Its destructive power is no worse than it was, but it has lost some conventional power, which in many ways makes the international situation more unstable.

[Mr Jenkin]

I absolutely concur with what my hon. Friend says—I do not want to diminish it at all—but we need to keep cyber-warfare, particularly political interference, in perspective.

The Committee I chair, the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, produced a report on “Lessons learned from the EU Referendum” in March. It touched on this issue, and if I may say so, it in fact did so well in advance of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw). PACAC will also, I hope, conduct an inquiry on the 2017 general election, and we will continue to investigate these issues.

I should declare a tangential interest in that I was a director of Vote Leave at the time of the referendum. I can attest that we were aware of a certain amount of odd cyber- activity, and we speculated that the crash of the online voter registration system was the result of a cyber-attack. This was and continues to be disputed by the Government, but whether or not it is true, the Government need to create more resilient systems.

PACAC’s report highlighted the need not only to consider the potential for foreign interference in elections or referendums, but to examine the real nature of this potential interference. It found that, while the UK and the US understanding of “cyber” is predominantly technical, Russia and China use what is termed a “cognitive” approach, based on understanding mass psychology and how to exploit the fears of individuals. They are less interested in the apparent intended effect of their activities—whether they alter the balance of the debate or affect peoples’ voting intentions is entirely secondary—but are much more interested in being seen to be able to do what they do. They want to be seen tweaking the nose of the west, flaunting their capability, acting illegally and proving what they can do, and to show that we cannot stop them doing so.

These countries want us to react, and this creates something of a dilemma. They want us to hold debates such as this one. President Putin is manipulating this debate: he will be chortling in the Kremlin at the fact that we are discussing these matters and putting Russia centre stage, because this is exactly what he wants. They see our reacting to this activity as evidence of their ability to control and manipulate us. It is also important for them to be able to report this to their domestic audience as evidence, however incredible it may seem to us, of their power and influence in the world. This has clear implications for what we understand by a cyber-attack, the nature of such cyber-attacks and how we respond both physically and politically. I commend the Prime Minister for adopting a tough stance on this and for the establishment of the national cyber-security centre in 2016, but we need to use this work to gain a better understanding of the real motivations behind it.

The Government published their response to PACAC’s report on the EU referendum in a Command Paper yesterday, and I very much welcome it. The Government say they are taking the issue of cyber-security extremely seriously: the centre played an important role in monitoring key systems for unusual activity in the run-up to the 2017 general election, and the Cabinet Office convened a dedicated monitoring and response cell throughout the election period to ensure that any risks emerging in the immediate run-up to and during the election were co-ordinated effectively. In their response to PACAC’s report, the Government say they will continue to work closely with the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators in assessing the threat to the UK’s democratic process and implementing further measures to mitigate the risks.

Although we can be assured that our paper-based voting system is much more difficult to manipulate than an electronic one, we remain vulnerable to the broader attempt to use social media in elections as a platform for influence. Further consideration should be given to the Electoral Commission’s recommendation in 2014 that the law be changed to require online campaign advertising to have the equivalent of an imprint. The control of offshore operators, however, is extremely difficult.

I encourage the Government to ensure that any efforts to assess the threat include an analysis of the motivations and approaches taken by key actors, and the level of threat that they represent. I encourage them to ensure that that work is translated into an effective and co-ordinated response, and further to our report, I call again on the Government to commit to presenting annual reports to Parliament on these matters.

We must avoid the temptation to overreact and start suggesting that massive changes to public opinion have been created by this relatively tiny amount of social media activity. Otherwise, we are playing exactly into what the Russians want—we are questioning the very processes that they want us to question, and asking the questions that they want to generate. We must avoid doing that because it is completely unnecessary.