Prime Minister Boris Johnson should release the secret report on Russian influence operations that was recently produced in Britain. Authored by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, the report was submitted to No. 10 Downing St. on Oct. 17.
But since then, the report has been shelved. Johnson says it is undergoing a six-week review process and will be published after the Dec. 12 election. But that doesn’t add up. In a statement on Tuesday, the Intelligence Committee’s Conservative chairman, Dominic Grieve, explained that he is “extremely disappointed” and “baffled” as to why Johnson has delayed the report’s release. Grieve observed that only a 10-day delay was expected and that the U.K. intelligence community has approved the report’s publication (which is normal for committee referrals to Downing Street).
So, what’s going on here? Well, Johnson wants to bury the report until after the election. I suspect that’s because the report carries two findings negative to the Conservative Party.
First, even if BuzzFeed is right and the report does not show a forensic link between Russian operations and the outcome of the 2016 Brexit vote and the 2017 general election, it likely documents Vladimir Putin’s support for Brexit. Putin has long viewed Brexit as a way to fragment the Anglo-American strategic relationship with the European Union. Putin believes that it weakens NATO and bolsters the voices of Russia’s European allies.
Absent Britain’s countermanding influence, for example, Putin can hope for new efforts from his Italian and Austrian partners to win EU sanctions relief.
Johnson, who is running on a campaign to get Brexit done, could do without this story of Putin’s support.
Second, I suspect that the report offers documentation of Russian efforts to buy political influence. Westminster politics already involve concerning interactions between Russian agents and pro-Putin oligarchs on the one hand and British politicians on the other. And the Conservative Party has spent the past 10 years enjoying the benefits of Russian expatriate money.
While Russian oligarchs in London are nominally free individuals, it is a standing rule under Putin that Russian political advocacy in the West must serve Putin’s own interests. Put simply, these oligarchs would not be donating to the Conservatives if Putin did not want them to do so. But by investing tens of billions of pounds in London’s economy and the U.K. economy at large, Putin has bought insurance against negative British government action. This is why, for example, Britain so long tolerated Russian government assassins running rampant on its soil. It was only when the Russian GRU started porting high-grade nerve agents around small country towns that Britain woke up. Seeing as how Conservatives have been in power since 2010, Johnson doesn’t want this sort of story to come out right on the eve of an election.
It is true that Johnson’s primary contender for the British premiership, Jeremy Corbyn, is Putin’s preferred candidate for prime minister. Still, Russian support for Corbyn and his Stalinist cronies will be filtered through various pro-Labour Party unions and agents. Those money flows are harder to track and, where identified by British intelligence, will be redacted from the report to protect sources and methods. In short, the Conservatives have the most to lose from this report’s release even if Labour is in no position to complain about Russian influence.
That’s really all too bad. Johnson’s first duty is to the British people and their security. Putin’s Russia is a proven enemy to those interests. Britons deserve the facts.
