UK Elections | Government warns of risk of Russian interference

(London) British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned on Sunday of the risk of Russian interference in the campaign for the July 4 elections, after an Australian media outlet highlighted coordinated activities on Facebook.

“There is a threat in every election, and indeed we see it in this election, from hostile actors seeking to influence the outcome” of the vote, Oliver Dowden told 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.

“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”.

However, he criticised Mr Farage’s recent comments suggesting that the West had “provoked” the war in Ukraine.

Asked on Sky News about fears of interference, the leader of Reform UK brushed aside what he called the “Russian hoax”. He also reiterated that the affair of racist remarks against British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak by an activist from his campaign was a “trap”.

“It was a stunt from start to finish,” “a deliberate attempt to derail our campaign,” he said.

After withdrawing his support for three candidates over racist remarks, and telling a rally on Sunday that Reform was rid of the “black sheep”, Nigel Farage has been confronted with the defection of one of his candidates.

Liam Booth-Isherwood, who was running in central England, justified his decision by denouncing the failure of the party leadership to tackle racism and sexism in its ranks. He announced that he was supporting the Conservative candidate, who he believed was the only candidate capable of beating Labour.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, which is leading the polls by a wide margin, has received support from 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”.

In the Sunday TelegraphPrime Minister Rishi Sunak has warned of the “irreversible damage” he believes the UK risks if Labour wins, 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.