Sam Coates, Unlock Democracy

Last week, Westminster’s International Security Committee finally published a heavily redacted version of the report into Russian interference in UK elections and referendums. 

Number 10 blocked its publication nine months ago in the run up to the general election, prompting rumours of damning links between Russian oligarchs and the Conservative party. Others guessed it would reveal significant meddling in the Brexit referendum, something a government deeply committed to the project didn’t want to talk about.

At best, the report reveals a government indifferent to meddling by the powerful, wherever in the world they happen to be. Since the government did not instruct the security services to investigate, the level of attempted interference by Russia into the EU referendum isn’t fully known. 

The report points out an interesting contrast between how our own government and the US has responded to the same concerns. In the US, the intelligence services and Congress have done extensive work to reveal the extent of any foreign interference in elections. In the UK, the committee said "It has been surprisingly difficult to establish who has responsibility for what", and the UK Parliament as a whole is much weaker in its ability to run investigations independent of the executive. 

The Prime Minister immediately rejected the Committee's calls for a probe into the true nature of meddling into the 2016 referendum, as well as any new powers for the Electoral Commission. We can maybe explain what’s happening behind the scenes by looking at the relationship between Russian money and politicians.

The report tells us “...members of the Russian elite closely linked to Putin are...involved with charitable and/or political organisations in the UK, having donated to political parties, with a public profile which positions them to assist Russian influence operations. It is notable that a number of members of the House of Lords have business interests linked to Russia, or work directly for major Russian companies linked to the Russian state – these relationships should be carefully scrutinised, given the potential for the Russian state to exploit them.”

When we add to the mix vast recent donations by Russian oligarchs to the Conservatives we can see the government has no incentive to take these concerns seriously.

The real story here is the continued stranglehold of big money over UK politics. A governing party is dismissing serious concerns by MPs and campaigners because they are so close to a rich and powerful elite, which might hail from the UK, Russia, or somewhere else entirely. The problem is not that they are Russian, but that a handful of people are having enormous influence over government, while the rest of us struggle to be heard at all. 

If we want to disentangle the links between big money and government, we need to totally redesign our system of government. That has to start with a public-led democratic process to draft a new constitution to replace the creaking Westminster system.