view, urgent and we expect the Government to report on progress in this area as soon as possible.
36. The problems identified above regarding roles and responsibilities may be addressed by the Government's Defending Democracy programme, which was publicly announced in July 2019. We have been told that this will co-ordinate the Government's work on protecting democratic discourse and processes from interference under the leadership of the Cabinet Office, with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster[1] and the Deputy National Security Adviser holding overall responsibility at ministerial and official level respectively.
37. The aim is sound, but the response proposed is still rather fragmented (with at least ten separate teams within Government involved, as well as the Electoral Commission and Information Commissioner's Office). In addition, it seems to have been afforded a rather low priority: it was signed off by the National Security Council only in February 2019, almost three years after the EU referendum campaign and the US presidential election which brought these issues to the fore. In the Committee's view, a foreign power seeking to interfere in our democratic processes – whether it is successful or not – cannot be taken lightly; our democracy is intrinsic to our country's success and well-being and any threat to it must be treated as a serious national security issue by those tasked with defending us.
38. The regulation of political advertising falls outside this Committee's remit. We agree, however, with the DCMS Select Committee's conclusion that the regulatory framework needs urgent review if it is to be fit for purpose in the age of widespread social media. In particular, we note and affirm the Select Committee's recommendation that all online political adverts should include an imprint stating who is paying for it.[2] We would add to that a requirement for social media companies to co-operate with MI5 where it is suspected that a hostile foreign state may be covertly running a campaign.
39. There have been widespread public allegations that Russia sought to influence the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the EU. The impact of any such attempts would be difficult – if not impossible – to assess, and we have not sought to do so. However, it is important to establish whether a hostile state took deliberate action with the aim of influencing a UK democratic process, irrespective of whether it was successful or not.
40. Open source studies have pointed to the preponderance of pro-Brexit or anti-EU stories on RT and Sputnik, and the use of 'bots' and 'trolls', as evidence of Russian attempts to influence the process.[3] We have sought to establish whether there is secret intelligence which supported or built on these studies. In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the Inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text. It stated that ***, before referring to academic studies.[4] This was noteworthy in terms of the way it was couched (***) and the reference to open source studies ***. The brevity was also, to us, again,
- ↑ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster delegates to the Minister for the Constitution as appropriate.
- ↑ DCMS Select Committee, Disinformation and 'Fake News', HC 1791, 18 February 2019.
- ↑ The DCMS Select Committee's report Disinformation and 'Fake News' (HC 1791, 18 February 2019) surveys and comments on some of these studies.
- ↑ Written evidence – HMG, 3 April 2018.
12
