(London) British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned Sunday of the risk of Russian interference in the campaign for the July 4 elections, after an Australian media outlet highlighted coordinated activity on Facebook.
“There is a threat in all elections, and indeed we see it in this election, from hostile actors seeking to influence the outcome” of the vote, Oliver Dowden said on Sky News.
“Russia is an example of this, and this is a classic example of the Russian game,” he added, referring to a “low-level” operation.
Australian public television ABC identified five coordinated Facebook pages, with 190,000 followers in total, critical of several British political parties, including Labor and the Conservatives, but sometimes supporting Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party. Experts interviewed by ABC saw this as the mark of a Russian influence operation.
PHOTO PETER BYRNE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
“I am not suggesting in any way that there is any kind of direct collusion” between Russia and the leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, said Oliver Dowden, stressing that his purpose was to “warn” about “the threat of Russian state interference in our elections”.
On the other hand, he criticized Mr Farage’s recent comments suggesting that the West had “provoked” the war in Ukraine.
Asked about fears of interference on Sky News, the Reform UK leader dismissed what he called a “Russian hoax” and repeated that the racist comments made by a campaigner against British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were a “trap”.
“It was an act from start to finish,” “a deliberate attempt to derail our campaign,” he argued.
Well ahead in the polls, Keir Starmer’s Labor Party received the support of singer Elton John and the conservative newspaper Sunday Timeswho in an editorial judged that it was time for Labor “to be given the task of restoring competence to government”, “there comes a time when change is the only option”.
PHOTO STEFAN ROUSSEAU, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Labour Party leader Keir Starmer
In the Sunday TelegraphPrime Minister Rishi Sunak warned of the “irreversible damage” that he believes the United Kingdom risks in the event of a Labor victory, noting that there are four days left to “save the country”.
“I don’t want people to give up their pensions, their finances, our borders, their security to a Labour government,” Rishi Sunak told the BBC, saying it was the “choice” the British people had.