Snapshot of _Tories 'highly alarmed' by network of pro-Russian Facebook pages interfering in UK election_ :
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It's still helping them, the point of this new talking point is so they can take a page out of the American handbook and talk about election interference after they get clattered.
They're heading for irrelevance with a slim chance of no longer being the opposition, something which parties historically don't recover from.
Them having an excuse for that is no help at all.
Not this time. It’s their usual playbook during peace (supporting both sides during BLM, Brexit, Scottish Indy etc) but this time Putins life is at stake - Either Biden / Tories/Labour win here and anti Russian parties in Europe and Ukraine gets continued, even renewed support and Russia is going to have a very, very hard time keeping any momentum (a lot of actual analysts predict there’s a very high chance of completely unable to continue around 2 years from now) or…he gets Trump (who isn’t in Putins good books at the moment due to unpredictability but far far preferable to Biden, and no, that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t a Russian useful idiot still, he very much is) and Farage and Le Pen which could be very bad for Ukraine.
This isn’t the usual playbook for him as actual stakes are on the line for him so he’s going to be pushing for the side that benefits him, I.E, reform.
How? Do you honestly think that Cameron wanted the Brexit referendum? He only had it because the Putin fed UKIP was eating his support on the right. And then he resigned after Putin meddled Leave campaign had beaten him. I would be quite surprised if he would be saying that , yeah, it was good for us that Putin meddled with our politics.
The Russian propaganda machine sows discord. Brexit tied up our political system for 5 years or so and caused great division. The intention in that specific case was also to weaken the EU. The Leave campaigns wilfully ignored Russian influence or actually courted it in some cases.
The Russians did similar with the Miner's Strike during the 1980s. They sent supplies and food packages to striking miners. The left, those that supported the strike thought this was a sign of solidarity but the intention was to lengthen the deeply toxic dispute for as long as possible.
I doubt that Russia did much after Brexit except maybe to enflame the extreme sides of the politics that may have helped Corbyn to become the Labour leader, which Putin knew would create big divisions in the society (just like Trump did in the US). He would have definitely preferred Corbyn to Johnson being the UK leader in 2022. Just imagine what the reaction to the invasion would have been with Corbyn at the helm..
Boris only cares about Boris. He was useful for the Russians when he was writing Kremlin propaganda saying the EU was to blame for Russia's annexation of Crimea, his pushing us into a chaotic no deal Brexit, not releasing the Russia report into election interference, installing an ex-KGB agent son into the House of Lords and partying at a KGB agents luxury Italian villa without his security detail whilst Foreign secretary.
Supporting Ukraine was morally good but also conveniently let him roleplay Churchill whilst being swamped by countless domestic scandals at home.
I wouldn't think of it as direct allyships, more that Russian, and any state operating political influence, will support candidates or narratives which benefit their country or degrade any opponents at any time.
I think Russia wanted Boris as PM because they knew he'd be shit at the job, and a shit PM for us is good news for Russia. I think his support of Ukraine caught them by suprise because up until that point he'd shown no strong conviction for anything.
No way they wanted Boris over Russian sympathiser Corbyn who would have tried to remove us from NATO and gas light us into thinking Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine
Supporting ukraine quickly was probably the only notable decision or achievement that Boris has
> I think Russia wanted Boris as PM because they knew he'd be shit at the job, and a shit PM for us is good news for Russia.
That doesn't make sense at all. Why would Russia look at the 2019 election and decide they really wouldn't prefer the guy who gave them the benefit of the doubt after the Salisbury attack, personally wanted to abandon Trident and personally wanted to take the UK out of NATO? Russia would go nuts at the idea of someone like that being the PM.
How is that ending with the conclusion that the Kremlin would have actively preferred the Tories in power over Labour in context of that being beneficial to the Kremlin's interests?
Tories are likely to look the other way on Russian interests so long as the money comes in. Labour would overrule Corbyn if he tried to do anything that benefits Russia, making their attempts to get him in pointless.
No come on this is just pure "I'm making up justifications now because doing so lets me keep my initial conclusion".
It's not like the PM is some powerless figurehead and the MOD would have carte blanche to act independently of the rest of Government to send weaponry/money/intelligence to Ukraine against the wishes of the PM. Similarly, the Tories have been fine to actively act against Russia repeatedly (calling them out on the Salisbury attacks compared to Corbyn's "let's give the evidence to Russia to see if they'll admit to it", actively sending troops to Ukraine to train their military up *specificially* to fight Ukraine etc). There's simply no consistency there for what you're saying to make sense to the extent that the Kremlin would actively choose Boris to be PM over Corbyn.
Labour would have been a bit more sensible dealing with Brexit. Not Corbyn himself - he hated the EU - but the majority of the party was pro-EU and would have negotiated a much softer Brexit.
The horseshoe theorists agree with you, and some would suggest he had Kremlin ties. The problem was that despite all that he wanted the Russians out of the HoL, the property market and the UK news sector, which would really hit them where it hurts
> The problem was that despite all that he wanted the Russians out of the HoL
The "Russian in the HoL" is someone who merely happened to have been born in Russia, who hasn't been back there for many years and has consistently been a very vocal critic of Putin and the Kremlin, both in his own personal capacity and via the medium of the Evening Standard and The Independent. It makes less than zero sense to suggest that they'd eschew someone who would be consistently soft on Russia as PM because they'd prioritise someone who actively dislikes them being in the HoL.
You know that the vulnerability exists irrespective of who is doing it. The next manipulation attempt could come from China, Iran, a crime group, terrorists, anyone.
Leftists weren't alarmed either, before Clinton lost to Trump and started blaming her loss on paranoid Russia conspiracy theories. Then Remainers suddenly had the brainwave to retroactively blame Brexit on Russia conspiracies too, several months after the fact.
This isn’t new news. We’ve known about this sort of interference since at least 2016.
What they’re alarmed about is that it’s likely being used to screw with the Tory vote.
Pretty much.
The Tories all but suppressed a report into Russias involvement when it was pushing a pro-brexit stance. Now it's not in their favour they're finally bothered about outside involvement in our politics.
much like the "supermajority".
the tories extremely vocally supported FPTP to the point where they just decided to change all local elections over to it in the hopes it would benefit them (primarily to unseat Khan, which failed, and of course it backfired totally when Andy Street lost re-election)
it looks like they could be in for a pasting that makes 1997 look merciful and now suddenly FPTP is the worst thing ever
This is it. It wasn’t alarming when it was intervening to support the things they wanted (Brexit) and weakening the EU, and stirring the pot on migration and dividing the left wing vote.
But now it’s a concern.
No Russia just had a much fatter wallet, the amount of tory politicians that have taken money from Russian sources is a bit silly. Remember Teresa May with the Russian oligarchs wife, the lord of siberia, Boris going missing to said Lords KGB linked father Italian villa after the Salisbury attack. There are probably many more examples but those are just the ones that spring to mind. There needs to be an inquiry about foreign state interference in our politics and rules put in place to stop it but we won't because our political class will just keep pretending that our system works and every thing is fine.
Yeh, I thought the West's public-impoverishing sanctions upon Russia - had already brought Russia to it's knees, financially....?
I guess that's why the Ruble is almost back where it was before the invasion, and the stock markets around the world - seemed to have ignored the "DefCon" factor - entirely!
If they were that worried about the democratic process perhaps they should’ve done something with that report into electoral interference in 2019 instead of sweeping it under the rug, but what do I know…
I started to notice it before the Scottish indy ref in 2014. Strange accounts that felt odd stirring things up, groups that appeared and where pushing very divided aspects on both sides of the argument.
Looking back I think they used the Scottish indy ref as a dry run at interfering and pushing us apart.
Causing anger and distrust in our political system and politicians imo is the major goal. It's very effective for a low cost/effort.
Yes in a very redacted report. I'm talking of my own experience at the time.
We still have not put in motion ways to really combat this type of interference and it should be taken far more serious.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53485642
The intel community statement summed it up succinctly;
"“We didn’t implicate anybody in the Russia report because if we had have implicated those people we found had been influenced by Russia it would have destabilised our government, and unlike Russia, we are not in the business of destabilising democracies.”
And in a sense they are correct. Irrespective of interference the votes and result are a matter of law. It would be best to focus on understanding the threat and mitigating it. Rather than a particular actor.
Yep, a democracy only functions if people trust it. Russia is fucking with us but we can't let that be the excuse for every single politician who loses a vote
It got released.
The gist of it was that they didn't find any Russian interference in elections because the writers of the report were specifically instructed not to look for Russian interference in elections.
> 44 The written evidence provided to us appeared to suggest that HMG had not seen or
sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that
has had a material impact on an election, for example influencing results
and
> 47 We have not been provided with any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts
at interference, ***.53 This situation is in stark contrast to the US handling of allegations
of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, where an intelligence community
assessment54 was produced within two months of the vote, with an unclassified summary
being made public. Whilst the issues at stake in the EU referendum campaign are less clearcut, it is nonetheless the Committee’s view that the UK Intelligence Community should
produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and
that an unclassified summary of it be published.
and
> 48 ***. Even if the conclusion of any such assessment were that there was minimal
interference, this would nonetheless represent a helpful reassurance to the public that the UK’s
democratic processes had remained relatively safe.
The sentence immediately after the redactions in paragraph 48 gives some context as to what the redactions might be!
https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CCS207_CCS0221966010-001_Russia-Report-v02-Web_Accessible.pdf
And to this day we still see right wingers point to it as though it dismisses the concern of Russian interference. It's a shame how the Tories succeeded in burying the problem.
Russian interference isn't really new. The Russians have been doing it for as long as the US has been doing it. Putin has long since being funding the far left and right in many different countries not only to obscure his motives but to also cause chaos.
I know. But when a government report (that Boris tried to hide because it showed interference in the Brexit referendum) was written 5 years ago, you would expect at least some reasonable attempts at stopping it.
We have a whole “party” of Putin Apologists, with their leader having been paid to be on a Kremlin propaganda channel, that likely should be considered a security risk.
We haven’t learnt anything.
Report on Russian interference in UK elections:
Establishment leftists started losing "unloseable" elections and needed a boogeyman to scapegoat, because they were too bigoted and insecure to admit growing numbers of people were organically rejecting their ideology. So they borrowed paranoid Russia conspiracy theories from US War On Terror intel officials they used to hate, who fabricated evidence of Saddam's WMD then blamed Russia conspiracy theories when they didn't find any.
Guess they'll have to update the report to include establishment Tories now too.
When a report commissioned by the conservatives/right showed Russian interference, then it no longer is a “leftist…boogeyman”.
I suggest you put away your own tin-foil hat and read the report
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exposes-attempted-russian-cyber-interference-in-politics-and-democratic-processes
You didn't grasp what I wrote.
The War On Terror neocon intel officials from the Bush admin, who fabricated evidence of "Saddam's WMD," then blamed Russia conspiracy theories after they invaded Iraq and failed to find any - who are the exact same people at the centre of all the Russia conspiracy theories today - are definitely not leftists.
The left just became a receptive audience for their conspiracies, when establishment parties inevitably started losing "unloseable" elections - after ignoring the steady rise of rw populism for years - and previously over-confident leftists became all paranoid and insecure.
Haha don't think you understand what a conspiracy is.
All the War On Terror neocons who lied about Saddam's WMD to start the Iraq War being viewed as paragons of truth and integrity by the left today is definitely not that.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4719428/user-clip-mueller-testifies-iraqs-wmds
Well, aside from the same people who made up Russia conspiracy theories about Iraq in the 2000s, being the same people at the centre of all the Russia conspiracy theories you blindly believe today.
You're right, everybody knows governments are infallible and never lie.
>Haha don't think you understand what a conspiracy is.
Well, don't have to think that anymore.
I mean the left only adopted all these US War On Terror neocon Russia conspiracy theories when they started losing "unloseable" elections. Wasn't a problem for them either before then.
The trade deal document leak was an issue during 2019 but it never really went anywhere because the labour campaign was already on the back foot at that point
Oh they investigated, they just made sure not too look anywhere suspicious (like Boris' links to Russian money and assets) and then, just to be doubly sure, not publish the report
We've known about this happening on all social media for several years but nobody has done anything to try counter it yet. These feckless Tories are 100% responsible because they've been in power the entire time this has been happening and they chose to ignore it. But now they're alarmed 😂, they absolutely should be alarmed but it's getting very late in the game now
> Isn't this shit happening in most Western countries?
Yes, it absolutely is. So it's not we have any excuse: there are learnings we could pull upon - if we were the sort of country that did that.
> Has any country done anything about Russian interference?
One good example is Finland's education system. Here is a good article: [_Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy_](https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/)
On a more serious note though - I did always wonder how the Tory expected to escape the devils bargain they struck with Russian Disinformation over Brexit to somehow evaporate after Brexit happened. I mean they suppressed the Russian interference report because it was politically useful for them to pretend that Putin hadn't fucked with the referendum - but did they honestly and truly think that the Russians would stop there once the UK was isolated and reduced in global power and suffering decades of internal chaos and distraction?
>I did always wonder how the Tory expected to escape the devils bargain
They assumed Putin's "thin skinned autocrat" shtick was an act, rather than the entirety of his personality, and that he would actually behave like a normal billionaire when among Etonian billionaires.
They're alarmed only now because it isn't benefiting them, and is instead probably pushing people towards their good agent/pal Nigel Farage and the Reform party.
Damn maybe the party in control of government for the past 14 years should have passed some legislation against that, rather than using it to benefit their agenda.
You mean the huge recent influx of pro-Reform posters with generic-named accounts that are months old but only made their first comment since the election was called and in support of a politician who promotes Russian foreign policy might not be genuine?
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They weren't afraid at all while taking donations from Kremlin, though, huh?
What a bunch of shortsighted losers, not only fucked up the country but can't even handle the elections...
Remember the comedy gold of the "Russia report"?
"We found no evidence that Russian interference affected the Brexit result"
"Did you look for any?"
"Erm, no."
Now they're on the losing side it's pearl clutching time.
People not working in cybersecurity, generally have no idea of the ongoing cyberwars. I worked both for a huge cybersecurity firm and even at a sort of prototype of Cambridge Analytica. This was a Facebook tool as far back as 2013 from recollection.
What it did was to calculate who you would be voting for, what things you liked, what your friends liked, how much money you earned etc... It would go through your FB feed looking at your comments and your friends comments, was incredibly accurate and based on this, you could work out how to influence that, specific person. In fact, it was getting so sophisticated we thought we could start to predict what your next purchase would be... before you made it.
This firm tried to get around data issues by storing the data away from Facebook but eventually, FB pulled the plug on it. We speculated that FB was doing the same themselves or selling the ability to manipulate voters to the highest bidder. Which came true with Cambridge Analytica.
My only surprise was that anyone was surprised because I'd seen this stuff for years.
And when I was working at a cybersecurity company, we saw a lot of activity from a certain country beginning with 'R' (I don't want to trigger bots so will keep the name out of this).
So bots are unsurprising. They're much smarter than we think of because they'll 'swarm' individuals, focus on elements that appeal to them and intelligently tailor messages to bring them onside. And based on all the intelligence I saw, I am 100% convinced a certain country is actively interfering in the UK (and EU, US) elections.
And with all the intelligence the Tories have at their disposal, if they don't know about it, they're phenomenally stupid. But yes, they benefited from it, hugely, and now they'll be crying because a certain Ref party will now be the beneficiaries.
I don't have recent data on effectiveness. But based on what I saw, I'd guesstimate up to 20% of the UK population is swayed by bot activity emanating from a certain country. But again, that's a pure guess.
>And when I was working at a cybersecurity company, we saw a lot of activity from a certain country beginning with 'R' (I don't want to trigger bots so will keep the name out of this).
I'm very curious about this, particularly if there were mechanisms to actually identify or evidence the activity. I used to moderate here and definitely had the feeling that some accounts (and in some cases users tied to iirc ~50 accounts) had a vested interest behind their posting. We did have the leaked nhs docs that eventually found their way to Corbyn posted here first, but no one ever noticed them at the time.
Trying to make any sense of it just became chasing and jumping at shadows though, there was no way to 'prove' any suspicions. Admins weren't particularly forthcoming in most appeals for help.
I also had doubts on effectiveness - it often felt like the goal behind such activity was mainly to stink up debate (per early NYT articles on the internet Research Agency and iirc more academic attempts to track activity often demonstrated bots on both sides of debates), or just give the impression that the activity 'could' have influenced outcomes with the doubt it caused being more of the end goal in of itself.
In security, for the kind of thing I was talking about, there are a few different ways.
However, for the bot stuff, embarrassingly, I was more concerned with helping the businesses I was working for to grow and sell / market, not IDing. Sorry for my part in cyber wars.
There's no, 'commercial,' en masse method to spot them that I know about at the moment. If you come across one, just let me know!
For bots, on Reddit, I don't know. I mean, I know how to look at one and figure it out but just the same way you would. E.g. this kind of stuff: [https://medium.com/@maps.em/how-to-identify-a-russian-troll-account-on-facebook-951e84571a93](https://medium.com/@maps.em/how-to-identify-a-russian-troll-account-on-facebook-951e84571a93)
I'm not sure I managed much better as an internet janitor wondering where all the mess kept coming from. Encouraging civility as a civic duty was about the best I could muster in response.
>There is a quite a rabbit hole to dive down should you feel inclined. I’ve noticed some interesting patterns.
>DISCLAIMER: Some real people may behave in this way
Hah, this pretty much summarises the difficulty I felt. Ultimately the risk of false positives felt too high so erred on presuming accounts were real, sincere people unless there was any definitive proof to the contrary (eg users forgetting to switch accounts back before posting a comment).
Just always kind of hoped for a Neo seeing the code type moment.
That said, the internet feels very different to me now than it did then. I'm not sure if it's just my reduced engagement, but I don't seem to see those type of accounts popping up in feeds as much. Facebook just seems to be generative AI thirst traps and 'what's your take on x prompts, and I definitely see less questionable accounts here than back in peak UKIP days (though even then through continued conversation and arguement with other users you'd get a feel for who was a real person that just had different opinions and experiences you, and who was trolling or inexplicably pursuing certain talking points).
I do worry that might suggest the siloing of different viewpoints in amongst the dead internet wasteland. There's likely Facebook groups and subreddits or entire platforms I have no idea even exist that could be influencing things out of sight.
Have you got any views on that landscape? I feel like for weeks the elections felt little more than a formality and we all knew exactly what to expect - but with Farage going full post-truth in response to C4news and QT I'm starting to get a gnawing reminder of 2015 and realising the Labour victory I was expecting had been more down to my own filter bubble of social media and in person contacts than an objective, omniscient overview.
I wonder if they'll support an incoming government performing a new investigation into Russian interference in our democratic processes.
*"Not like that! Not like that!"* - Tories, probably.
What a difference a few years makes, Tories were accepting piles of cash from them not long ago. My local Tory MP was literally exposed for doing this. The lack of shame is eye watering.
Well, it's reassuring to see that this sub, in particular, is taking this seriously and not at all trying to deflect or minimise. Because I'd hate to think that even this small piece of Eden has succumbed to online state sponsored and orchestrated warfare.
Gotta give it to these pesky russians, on the one hand they can't even win a war that seemed like it would take days and yet they have such influence and power all over the world they can effect the democracies of multiple countries at a whim. Meanwhile the UK can't even build a train track...
This shit has been happening for at least 10 years. Could someone please try to sort it out. Or at least have a commission to talk about it openly and present evidence.
There is a specific Russian threat, but there's a more general threat from the way social media works. Addressing the latter will also (very largely) address the former, and also address a broader range of threats from various actors.
It goes to the heart of what democracy is.
Long game for Putin, Tories were best for them before and after Brexit. Now they've lost their mojo, he's trying to get the fash into opposition who openly support him!
Remember that Russian bots like to use our rivalries against us, and astroturf subjects like this to try and stop people caring.
If I were a Russian bot, I would be commenting here telling you that you shouldn't worry about this today, because the Tories didn't care before.
Keep that in mind as you read the swarm of identical comments here, and remember that a significant percentage of this subs traffic comes from Russia.
Dealing with Russian interference of our fundamental political process should be one of our top priorities, regardless of who that interference helps or hurts.
The Established parties - should be giving us reason to vote FOR them, rather than tell us a vote for a party with no seats is "more worrying for them" than LOSING....
This feels very desperate and vibes of hillary 2016.. when you are getting panned because you have stolen everything you can and made a mockery of your own parties internal democratic procedures what on earth do you expect..
IF you were in moscow you would absolutely be rallying little blue flags and making little old dear profiles on fb pretending to be voting for conservatives since they are the absolute worst option for the country.
5 more years of tory government and our armed forces will be reduced to three squaddies and an it graduate called paul who trys to ask /b/ for help with cyberattacks and makes memes calling putin bad.
No, but they have been wildly, disproportionately, effective in pushing some, frankly, fringe viewpoints.
If the main aim is to sow discontent, chaos, distrust of democratic institutions etc, then it has been successful.
Tories just increased military spending. So, your theory falls flat.
And Russians are not really keen on any particular policies (except Brexit as that split Europe). What matters to them far more is the destruction of political unity in the country. They've successfully accomplished that in America that's now split into two sides that really really hate each other. They want to do the same in all European countries as well.
In the UK that means pushing Reform up as it's the party that stirs up the politics far more than the usual Tories v Labour split. Both big parties are united in their support of Ukraine and so are the people. Reform is doing its best to sow seeds of disunity to it.
It doesnt fall flat, our armed forces have been reduced in size and scope every single year since 2010.. you may look this up if you wish, upto the point where our own allies say we arent upto anything anymore
[https://news.sky.com/story/us-general-warns-british-army-no-longer-top-level-fighting-force-defence-sources-reveal-12798365](https://news.sky.com/story/us-general-warns-british-army-no-longer-top-level-fighting-force-defence-sources-reveal-12798365)
[https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-can-no-longer-defend-itself/](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-can-no-longer-defend-itself/) .
They have decimated our defence capabilities perfectly on their own.
So no my theory doesnt fall flat at all. its why alot of people who are in favour of having a strong military utterly despair at the tories.
Which part of increased defense spending you had trouble understanding?
Everything you now wrote was about past (and doesn't apply only to the UK but almost all European countries that have been enjoying the peace dividend). Your claim was about future. The increased defense spending is about future not past.
I don't how more clearly I can say that.
I said our armed forces will be reduced to, do you have comprehension issues?
Also they have increased the budget for many years now whilst reducing personnel... so it doesnt really hold up that more money equates to more troops which is what i originally said.
The point is 13 years in power has been reducing the army and there is no change in that trend.
Yes, as I said your claim was about *future* but the arguments that you presented were about the past. You didn't address the main argument that I presented (the UK is increasing its defence spending).
I'd say, it's the job of the military to decide how they get best bang for buck for their 2.5% of GDP defence spending. If they decide it's by reducing personnel, then that's *their* decision, not government's.
And you're wrong about increased spending. The UK defence spending as a percentage of GDP has decreased from 2010 (just like all other public sector spending) ([source ](https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_defence_analysis)). If they now raise it back to 2.5%, then that would restore it to the same level as where it was then.
So, there is no magic, it's all about money. If you don't invest in defence, then it's going to decline. If you do, then it's going to recover. It's not that complicated.
So? Have you ever heard of a thing called inflation? If it had been fixed in pound terms it would have meant reduction in real terms.
Assuming that the soldiers' wages have increased along with others (so at the same speed as the economic growth), the falling share of GDP to defence means automatically that there will be fewer soldiers and only way to return previous levels is to increase the GDP share to the previous level.
According to the article, Russia is also, under the guise of British Patriots and Common Sense Britain, *promoting* support for Ukraine. Why would they promote the mainstream position if they wanted to increase polarisation?
One wonders whether the hypothesis that all political "disunity" in the West originates from Russia is falsifiable.
Why is it hard to take seriously? Russia views itself as in conflict with the West and is undertaking hybrid warfare against us. That's demonstrably true - and much more apparent on the continent.
Part of this, though, is informational warfare, which it uses to destabilise the democratic process and to reduce trust in institutions.
You can absolutely query the impact of this, but it is happening. And it would have been nice for the Russia report to have been released in 2019 rather than delayed.
I didn't say you said that Putin isn't. I don't know where that came from. I understood that you were interested in learning how much he is doing and I offered you a good source to start. You're of course free to ignore it but at least then don't say that nobody knows anything.
Sunak pulling out all his “strong” moves to fight to not come third or fourth is the funniest timeline
He’s said reform called him racist and are russian bots.
But doesn’t even dream of catching labour 😂 😂
Snapshot of _Tories 'highly alarmed' by network of pro-Russian Facebook pages interfering in UK election_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-29/uk-election-pro-russian-facebook-pages-coordinating/104038246) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-29/uk-election-pro-russian-facebook-pages-coordinating/104038246) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Odd how they weren't alarmed when it was helping them
It's still helping them, the point of this new talking point is so they can take a page out of the American handbook and talk about election interference after they get clattered.
They're heading for irrelevance with a slim chance of no longer being the opposition, something which parties historically don't recover from. Them having an excuse for that is no help at all.
It's not helping them, that's why they're complaining about it. And in America the Russians were supporting the people who lost.
They want reform in, they aren’t trying to help the tories
They just want dysfunctional and divisive politics. Reform doesn't even have to win.
This is it. The goal of “chaos and disruption” is much easier to achieve than backing any one particular party or candidate.
One party is vocally and openly pro Russia. How are they not backing them?
The bellandry in Reform is probably self-sustainable at this point.
Not this time. It’s their usual playbook during peace (supporting both sides during BLM, Brexit, Scottish Indy etc) but this time Putins life is at stake - Either Biden / Tories/Labour win here and anti Russian parties in Europe and Ukraine gets continued, even renewed support and Russia is going to have a very, very hard time keeping any momentum (a lot of actual analysts predict there’s a very high chance of completely unable to continue around 2 years from now) or…he gets Trump (who isn’t in Putins good books at the moment due to unpredictability but far far preferable to Biden, and no, that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t a Russian useful idiot still, he very much is) and Farage and Le Pen which could be very bad for Ukraine. This isn’t the usual playbook for him as actual stakes are on the line for him so he’s going to be pushing for the side that benefits him, I.E, reform.
How is Reform (the Russian favourite) eating their right wing vote helping the Tories?
They just want to damage institutions and cause chaos. Reform do that and it's enough.
How's that helping Tories? I understand that it's helping Putin but I thought the claim was that Russian meddling was helping Tories.
It was helping the Tories until Brexit "got done" by Johnson.
How? Do you honestly think that Cameron wanted the Brexit referendum? He only had it because the Putin fed UKIP was eating his support on the right. And then he resigned after Putin meddled Leave campaign had beaten him. I would be quite surprised if he would be saying that , yeah, it was good for us that Putin meddled with our politics.
The Russian propaganda machine sows discord. Brexit tied up our political system for 5 years or so and caused great division. The intention in that specific case was also to weaken the EU. The Leave campaigns wilfully ignored Russian influence or actually courted it in some cases. The Russians did similar with the Miner's Strike during the 1980s. They sent supplies and food packages to striking miners. The left, those that supported the strike thought this was a sign of solidarity but the intention was to lengthen the deeply toxic dispute for as long as possible.
I meant post-referendum - in particular from the 2017 election campaign onwards.
I doubt that Russia did much after Brexit except maybe to enflame the extreme sides of the politics that may have helped Corbyn to become the Labour leader, which Putin knew would create big divisions in the society (just like Trump did in the US). He would have definitely preferred Corbyn to Johnson being the UK leader in 2022. Just imagine what the reaction to the invasion would have been with Corbyn at the helm..
This isn't America. They haven't got a cult like following willing to buy into any nonsense.
It's not helping them if they lose.
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Boris only cares about Boris. He was useful for the Russians when he was writing Kremlin propaganda saying the EU was to blame for Russia's annexation of Crimea, his pushing us into a chaotic no deal Brexit, not releasing the Russia report into election interference, installing an ex-KGB agent son into the House of Lords and partying at a KGB agents luxury Italian villa without his security detail whilst Foreign secretary. Supporting Ukraine was morally good but also conveniently let him roleplay Churchill whilst being swamped by countless domestic scandals at home. I wouldn't think of it as direct allyships, more that Russian, and any state operating political influence, will support candidates or narratives which benefit their country or degrade any opponents at any time.
I think Russia wanted Boris as PM because they knew he'd be shit at the job, and a shit PM for us is good news for Russia. I think his support of Ukraine caught them by suprise because up until that point he'd shown no strong conviction for anything.
they wanted him in because they wanted as hard a brexit as possible to create as much disunity among the western allies as possible.
russiia dont care who wins they only want to create chaos and instability.
No way they wanted Boris over Russian sympathiser Corbyn who would have tried to remove us from NATO and gas light us into thinking Russia hadn't invaded Ukraine Supporting ukraine quickly was probably the only notable decision or achievement that Boris has
> I think Russia wanted Boris as PM because they knew he'd be shit at the job, and a shit PM for us is good news for Russia. That doesn't make sense at all. Why would Russia look at the 2019 election and decide they really wouldn't prefer the guy who gave them the benefit of the doubt after the Salisbury attack, personally wanted to abandon Trident and personally wanted to take the UK out of NATO? Russia would go nuts at the idea of someone like that being the PM.
Labour under Corbyn were openly criticising him, whether Corbyn wanted to do that or not it's unlikely his party would have let him.
How is that ending with the conclusion that the Kremlin would have actively preferred the Tories in power over Labour in context of that being beneficial to the Kremlin's interests?
Tories are likely to look the other way on Russian interests so long as the money comes in. Labour would overrule Corbyn if he tried to do anything that benefits Russia, making their attempts to get him in pointless.
No come on this is just pure "I'm making up justifications now because doing so lets me keep my initial conclusion". It's not like the PM is some powerless figurehead and the MOD would have carte blanche to act independently of the rest of Government to send weaponry/money/intelligence to Ukraine against the wishes of the PM. Similarly, the Tories have been fine to actively act against Russia repeatedly (calling them out on the Salisbury attacks compared to Corbyn's "let's give the evidence to Russia to see if they'll admit to it", actively sending troops to Ukraine to train their military up *specificially* to fight Ukraine etc). There's simply no consistency there for what you're saying to make sense to the extent that the Kremlin would actively choose Boris to be PM over Corbyn.
Labour would have been a bit more sensible dealing with Brexit. Not Corbyn himself - he hated the EU - but the majority of the party was pro-EU and would have negotiated a much softer Brexit.
And again...... that's massively in the Kremlin's interest... how??
The horseshoe theorists agree with you, and some would suggest he had Kremlin ties. The problem was that despite all that he wanted the Russians out of the HoL, the property market and the UK news sector, which would really hit them where it hurts
> The problem was that despite all that he wanted the Russians out of the HoL The "Russian in the HoL" is someone who merely happened to have been born in Russia, who hasn't been back there for many years and has consistently been a very vocal critic of Putin and the Kremlin, both in his own personal capacity and via the medium of the Evening Standard and The Independent. It makes less than zero sense to suggest that they'd eschew someone who would be consistently soft on Russia as PM because they'd prioritise someone who actively dislikes them being in the HoL.
It's like you've never heard of Brexit
You know that the vulnerability exists irrespective of who is doing it. The next manipulation attempt could come from China, Iran, a crime group, terrorists, anyone.
You mean the man who put the son of a KGB spy into the Lords?
Leftists weren't alarmed either, before Clinton lost to Trump and started blaming her loss on paranoid Russia conspiracy theories. Then Remainers suddenly had the brainwave to retroactively blame Brexit on Russia conspiracies too, several months after the fact.
This isn’t new news. We’ve known about this sort of interference since at least 2016. What they’re alarmed about is that it’s likely being used to screw with the Tory vote.
Pretty much. The Tories all but suppressed a report into Russias involvement when it was pushing a pro-brexit stance. Now it's not in their favour they're finally bothered about outside involvement in our politics.
much like the "supermajority". the tories extremely vocally supported FPTP to the point where they just decided to change all local elections over to it in the hopes it would benefit them (primarily to unseat Khan, which failed, and of course it backfired totally when Andy Street lost re-election) it looks like they could be in for a pasting that makes 1997 look merciful and now suddenly FPTP is the worst thing ever
They were fine with it while the Russian involvement was favourable to them
If only they'd done some sort of investigation and put measures in place to stop outside interference in our politics.
They could of called it something simple like say "The Russia Report".
Yes but something about leopards.
This is it. It wasn’t alarming when it was intervening to support the things they wanted (Brexit) and weakening the EU, and stirring the pot on migration and dividing the left wing vote. But now it’s a concern.
Yep. Duplicitous Bastards.
They really played the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" philosophy, thinking the left was it's enemy and not Russia.
No Russia just had a much fatter wallet, the amount of tory politicians that have taken money from Russian sources is a bit silly. Remember Teresa May with the Russian oligarchs wife, the lord of siberia, Boris going missing to said Lords KGB linked father Italian villa after the Salisbury attack. There are probably many more examples but those are just the ones that spring to mind. There needs to be an inquiry about foreign state interference in our politics and rules put in place to stop it but we won't because our political class will just keep pretending that our system works and every thing is fine.
It is not even a particularly fat wallet.
Yeh, I thought the West's public-impoverishing sanctions upon Russia - had already brought Russia to it's knees, financially....? I guess that's why the Ruble is almost back where it was before the invasion, and the stock markets around the world - seemed to have ignored the "DefCon" factor - entirely!
Basically Tories are shocked and stunned that the monster they let in through the back door is now tearing their own house apart.
Indeed. Playing with fire and all that.
If they were that worried about the democratic process perhaps they should’ve done something with that report into electoral interference in 2019 instead of sweeping it under the rug, but what do I know…
Exactly, same reason why Tories are now squeeling about FPTP.
I started to notice it before the Scottish indy ref in 2014. Strange accounts that felt odd stirring things up, groups that appeared and where pushing very divided aspects on both sides of the argument. Looking back I think they used the Scottish indy ref as a dry run at interfering and pushing us apart. Causing anger and distrust in our political system and politicians imo is the major goal. It's very effective for a low cost/effort.
Didn't the indy ref get officially recognised as being an early test for Russian interference? It's less a suspicion, more like a recognised fact.
Yes in a very redacted report. I'm talking of my own experience at the time. We still have not put in motion ways to really combat this type of interference and it should be taken far more serious. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-53485642
I'm sure it's the Tories paying for it so they can use it as a scapegoat.
They covered up a whole report on this previously.
The intel community statement summed it up succinctly; "“We didn’t implicate anybody in the Russia report because if we had have implicated those people we found had been influenced by Russia it would have destabilised our government, and unlike Russia, we are not in the business of destabilising democracies.”
And in a sense they are correct. Irrespective of interference the votes and result are a matter of law. It would be best to focus on understanding the threat and mitigating it. Rather than a particular actor.
Yep, a democracy only functions if people trust it. Russia is fucking with us but we can't let that be the excuse for every single politician who loses a vote
Wonder if Starmer releases that report when he gets in?
It got released. The gist of it was that they didn't find any Russian interference in elections because the writers of the report were specifically instructed not to look for Russian interference in elections.
> 44 The written evidence provided to us appeared to suggest that HMG had not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes or any activity that has had a material impact on an election, for example influencing results and > 47 We have not been provided with any post-referendum assessment of Russian attempts at interference, ***.53 This situation is in stark contrast to the US handling of allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, where an intelligence community assessment54 was produced within two months of the vote, with an unclassified summary being made public. Whilst the issues at stake in the EU referendum campaign are less clearcut, it is nonetheless the Committee’s view that the UK Intelligence Community should produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and that an unclassified summary of it be published. and > 48 ***. Even if the conclusion of any such assessment were that there was minimal interference, this would nonetheless represent a helpful reassurance to the public that the UK’s democratic processes had remained relatively safe. The sentence immediately after the redactions in paragraph 48 gives some context as to what the redactions might be! https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CCS207_CCS0221966010-001_Russia-Report-v02-Web_Accessible.pdf
There is a lot of word gymnastics going on there to try and hide the interference. Thanks for sharing!
Pretending interference is a serious risk in an open democracy is worse than the attempts
And to this day we still see right wingers point to it as though it dismisses the concern of Russian interference. It's a shame how the Tories succeeded in burying the problem.
In that case lets hope for a real report
nope, that would be rather foolish
how so?
It’s a shame that there wasn’t some report written about Russian interference in our elections 5 years ago.
Russian interference isn't really new. The Russians have been doing it for as long as the US has been doing it. Putin has long since being funding the far left and right in many different countries not only to obscure his motives but to also cause chaos.
I know. But when a government report (that Boris tried to hide because it showed interference in the Brexit referendum) was written 5 years ago, you would expect at least some reasonable attempts at stopping it. We have a whole “party” of Putin Apologists, with their leader having been paid to be on a Kremlin propaganda channel, that likely should be considered a security risk. We haven’t learnt anything.
Report on Russian interference in UK elections: Establishment leftists started losing "unloseable" elections and needed a boogeyman to scapegoat, because they were too bigoted and insecure to admit growing numbers of people were organically rejecting their ideology. So they borrowed paranoid Russia conspiracy theories from US War On Terror intel officials they used to hate, who fabricated evidence of Saddam's WMD then blamed Russia conspiracy theories when they didn't find any. Guess they'll have to update the report to include establishment Tories now too.
When a report commissioned by the conservatives/right showed Russian interference, then it no longer is a “leftist…boogeyman”. I suggest you put away your own tin-foil hat and read the report https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exposes-attempted-russian-cyber-interference-in-politics-and-democratic-processes
You didn't grasp what I wrote. The War On Terror neocon intel officials from the Bush admin, who fabricated evidence of "Saddam's WMD," then blamed Russia conspiracy theories after they invaded Iraq and failed to find any - who are the exact same people at the centre of all the Russia conspiracy theories today - are definitely not leftists. The left just became a receptive audience for their conspiracies, when establishment parties inevitably started losing "unloseable" elections - after ignoring the steady rise of rw populism for years - and previously over-confident leftists became all paranoid and insecure.
I understood you exactly. You only believe your own conspiracies and ignore evidence when this presented to you.
Haha don't think you understand what a conspiracy is. All the War On Terror neocons who lied about Saddam's WMD to start the Iraq War being viewed as paragons of truth and integrity by the left today is definitely not that. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4719428/user-clip-mueller-testifies-iraqs-wmds
Iraq has nothing to do with the report on Russian interference in elections.
Well, aside from the same people who made up Russia conspiracy theories about Iraq in the 2000s, being the same people at the centre of all the Russia conspiracy theories you blindly believe today.
And you think that you aren’t a conspiracist! Your total argument is: “Wake up sheeple, your government is lying to you!”
You're right, everybody knows governments are infallible and never lie. >Haha don't think you understand what a conspiracy is. Well, don't have to think that anymore.
It's only a problem when it doesn't work in their favour, aye?
I mean the left only adopted all these US War On Terror neocon Russia conspiracy theories when they started losing "unloseable" elections. Wasn't a problem for them either before then.
Which conspiracy theories are you talking about?
The title of this thread is literally a conspiracy theory.
They didn’t care when they helped with brexit! You reap what you sow asshats
It wasn't an issue during Brexit or 2019 I remember? Who cares what the soon to be 3rd place thinks about anything?
Get ready for them to cry about how unfair first past the post has been to them.
The trade deal document leak was an issue during 2019 but it never really went anywhere because the labour campaign was already on the back foot at that point
Perhaps you shouldn't have taken loads of Russian money, perhaps you should have investigated Russian interference into UK politics and parliament.
Oh they investigated, they just made sure not too look anywhere suspicious (like Boris' links to Russian money and assets) and then, just to be doubly sure, not publish the report
We've known about this happening on all social media for several years but nobody has done anything to try counter it yet. These feckless Tories are 100% responsible because they've been in power the entire time this has been happening and they chose to ignore it. But now they're alarmed 😂, they absolutely should be alarmed but it's getting very late in the game now
To be clear, _nobody_ in this country has done anything. Other functioning democracies have been all over this.
Agreed
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> Isn't this shit happening in most Western countries? Yes, it absolutely is. So it's not we have any excuse: there are learnings we could pull upon - if we were the sort of country that did that. > Has any country done anything about Russian interference? One good example is Finland's education system. Here is a good article: [_Finland is winning the war on fake news. What it’s learned may be crucial to Western democracy_](https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/05/europe/finland-fake-news-intl/)
On a more serious note though - I did always wonder how the Tory expected to escape the devils bargain they struck with Russian Disinformation over Brexit to somehow evaporate after Brexit happened. I mean they suppressed the Russian interference report because it was politically useful for them to pretend that Putin hadn't fucked with the referendum - but did they honestly and truly think that the Russians would stop there once the UK was isolated and reduced in global power and suffering decades of internal chaos and distraction?
>I did always wonder how the Tory expected to escape the devils bargain They assumed Putin's "thin skinned autocrat" shtick was an act, rather than the entirety of his personality, and that he would actually behave like a normal billionaire when among Etonian billionaires.
> but did they honestly and truly think you've almost answered your own question there: they don't think
Yep. And Keir "Make Brexit work" Starmer will soon learn the same lesson. You can't control Fascists, you can only fight them.
Oh, so now that they aren't backing them they care.
It's not bothered them this past 14 years.
They're alarmed only now because it isn't benefiting them, and is instead probably pushing people towards their good agent/pal Nigel Farage and the Reform party.
It's alarming to them now the Russian Bots are pushing Reform. They were quite happy when Putin was secretly backing Vote Leave in 2016.
Oh...now they are worried....when it doesnt suit them.
If only there had been a report on Russian interference in British politics which could help the public understand how bad and far reaching this is.
Damn maybe the party in control of government for the past 14 years should have passed some legislation against that, rather than using it to benefit their agenda.
Gosh, if only they’d been in a position to do anything about it.
They weren't terribly fussed when the Russian troll farms were destabilising the country in favour of Brexit though, were they? I wonder why.
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You mean the huge recent influx of pro-Reform posters with generic-named accounts that are months old but only made their first comment since the election was called and in support of a politician who promotes Russian foreign policy might not be genuine?
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They weren't afraid at all while taking donations from Kremlin, though, huh? What a bunch of shortsighted losers, not only fucked up the country but can't even handle the elections...
Remember the comedy gold of the "Russia report"? "We found no evidence that Russian interference affected the Brexit result" "Did you look for any?" "Erm, no." Now they're on the losing side it's pearl clutching time.
Hardly surprising. Russia won’t beat Ukraine unless they knock away its support from us, the US and the EU.
People not working in cybersecurity, generally have no idea of the ongoing cyberwars. I worked both for a huge cybersecurity firm and even at a sort of prototype of Cambridge Analytica. This was a Facebook tool as far back as 2013 from recollection. What it did was to calculate who you would be voting for, what things you liked, what your friends liked, how much money you earned etc... It would go through your FB feed looking at your comments and your friends comments, was incredibly accurate and based on this, you could work out how to influence that, specific person. In fact, it was getting so sophisticated we thought we could start to predict what your next purchase would be... before you made it. This firm tried to get around data issues by storing the data away from Facebook but eventually, FB pulled the plug on it. We speculated that FB was doing the same themselves or selling the ability to manipulate voters to the highest bidder. Which came true with Cambridge Analytica. My only surprise was that anyone was surprised because I'd seen this stuff for years. And when I was working at a cybersecurity company, we saw a lot of activity from a certain country beginning with 'R' (I don't want to trigger bots so will keep the name out of this). So bots are unsurprising. They're much smarter than we think of because they'll 'swarm' individuals, focus on elements that appeal to them and intelligently tailor messages to bring them onside. And based on all the intelligence I saw, I am 100% convinced a certain country is actively interfering in the UK (and EU, US) elections. And with all the intelligence the Tories have at their disposal, if they don't know about it, they're phenomenally stupid. But yes, they benefited from it, hugely, and now they'll be crying because a certain Ref party will now be the beneficiaries. I don't have recent data on effectiveness. But based on what I saw, I'd guesstimate up to 20% of the UK population is swayed by bot activity emanating from a certain country. But again, that's a pure guess.
Truly. Noone gives a fuck about cybersec stuff despite its crazy influence in the social media space that everyone likes to fight the culture war on.
>And when I was working at a cybersecurity company, we saw a lot of activity from a certain country beginning with 'R' (I don't want to trigger bots so will keep the name out of this). I'm very curious about this, particularly if there were mechanisms to actually identify or evidence the activity. I used to moderate here and definitely had the feeling that some accounts (and in some cases users tied to iirc ~50 accounts) had a vested interest behind their posting. We did have the leaked nhs docs that eventually found their way to Corbyn posted here first, but no one ever noticed them at the time. Trying to make any sense of it just became chasing and jumping at shadows though, there was no way to 'prove' any suspicions. Admins weren't particularly forthcoming in most appeals for help. I also had doubts on effectiveness - it often felt like the goal behind such activity was mainly to stink up debate (per early NYT articles on the internet Research Agency and iirc more academic attempts to track activity often demonstrated bots on both sides of debates), or just give the impression that the activity 'could' have influenced outcomes with the doubt it caused being more of the end goal in of itself.
In security, for the kind of thing I was talking about, there are a few different ways. However, for the bot stuff, embarrassingly, I was more concerned with helping the businesses I was working for to grow and sell / market, not IDing. Sorry for my part in cyber wars. There's no, 'commercial,' en masse method to spot them that I know about at the moment. If you come across one, just let me know! For bots, on Reddit, I don't know. I mean, I know how to look at one and figure it out but just the same way you would. E.g. this kind of stuff: [https://medium.com/@maps.em/how-to-identify-a-russian-troll-account-on-facebook-951e84571a93](https://medium.com/@maps.em/how-to-identify-a-russian-troll-account-on-facebook-951e84571a93)
I'm not sure I managed much better as an internet janitor wondering where all the mess kept coming from. Encouraging civility as a civic duty was about the best I could muster in response. >There is a quite a rabbit hole to dive down should you feel inclined. I’ve noticed some interesting patterns. >DISCLAIMER: Some real people may behave in this way Hah, this pretty much summarises the difficulty I felt. Ultimately the risk of false positives felt too high so erred on presuming accounts were real, sincere people unless there was any definitive proof to the contrary (eg users forgetting to switch accounts back before posting a comment). Just always kind of hoped for a Neo seeing the code type moment. That said, the internet feels very different to me now than it did then. I'm not sure if it's just my reduced engagement, but I don't seem to see those type of accounts popping up in feeds as much. Facebook just seems to be generative AI thirst traps and 'what's your take on x prompts, and I definitely see less questionable accounts here than back in peak UKIP days (though even then through continued conversation and arguement with other users you'd get a feel for who was a real person that just had different opinions and experiences you, and who was trolling or inexplicably pursuing certain talking points). I do worry that might suggest the siloing of different viewpoints in amongst the dead internet wasteland. There's likely Facebook groups and subreddits or entire platforms I have no idea even exist that could be influencing things out of sight. Have you got any views on that landscape? I feel like for weeks the elections felt little more than a formality and we all knew exactly what to expect - but with Farage going full post-truth in response to C4news and QT I'm starting to get a gnawing reminder of 2015 and realising the Labour victory I was expecting had been more down to my own filter bubble of social media and in person contacts than an objective, omniscient overview.
I wonder if they'll support an incoming government performing a new investigation into Russian interference in our democratic processes. *"Not like that! Not like that!"* - Tories, probably.
What a difference a few years makes, Tories were accepting piles of cash from them not long ago. My local Tory MP was literally exposed for doing this. The lack of shame is eye watering.
Well, it's reassuring to see that this sub, in particular, is taking this seriously and not at all trying to deflect or minimise. Because I'd hate to think that even this small piece of Eden has succumbed to online state sponsored and orchestrated warfare.
Ha. Putin's friendship with the Tories is over. He now has Nigel and Reform to do his bidding.
If only they'd shown proper concern for all the Russian backing of the Brexit campaigns.
Highly alarmed but doing sweet fa about it for the last 8 or so years.
Gotta give it to these pesky russians, on the one hand they can't even win a war that seemed like it would take days and yet they have such influence and power all over the world they can effect the democracies of multiple countries at a whim. Meanwhile the UK can't even build a train track...
Boris was bum chums with Lebedev an ex-KGB colonel!
That's one way to call the Reform Party.
This shit has been happening for at least 10 years. Could someone please try to sort it out. Or at least have a commission to talk about it openly and present evidence.
No prizes for guessing which party the dictator states favour.
its those face-eating leopards again ain't it ?
Once again, the Nasty Party is just appalled someone outdid them.
Only because they are eating their lunch by supporting Reform. When it was happening to Labour they were silent.
So, now it's a problem when it's counter to what they want. Interesting.
Tories: I never thought bears would eat *my* face!
There is a specific Russian threat, but there's a more general threat from the way social media works. Addressing the latter will also (very largely) address the former, and also address a broader range of threats from various actors. It goes to the heart of what democracy is.
Only because the Russians aren’t backing them this time
Long game for Putin, Tories were best for them before and after Brexit. Now they've lost their mojo, he's trying to get the fash into opposition who openly support him!
Remember that Russian bots like to use our rivalries against us, and astroturf subjects like this to try and stop people caring. If I were a Russian bot, I would be commenting here telling you that you shouldn't worry about this today, because the Tories didn't care before. Keep that in mind as you read the swarm of identical comments here, and remember that a significant percentage of this subs traffic comes from Russia. Dealing with Russian interference of our fundamental political process should be one of our top priorities, regardless of who that interference helps or hurts.
> a significant percentage of this subs traffic comes from Russia. Does it? Where can I find this information?
Conservatives highlight another area that they've known about and had 9 years to do something about and don't fuck all.
We're in a Cold War. get with the times. Just ask Sunak what MI5 are doing about it. if he's authorised to disclose that to his followers, of course.
The Established parties - should be giving us reason to vote FOR them, rather than tell us a vote for a party with no seats is "more worrying for them" than LOSING....
This feels very desperate and vibes of hillary 2016.. when you are getting panned because you have stolen everything you can and made a mockery of your own parties internal democratic procedures what on earth do you expect.. IF you were in moscow you would absolutely be rallying little blue flags and making little old dear profiles on fb pretending to be voting for conservatives since they are the absolute worst option for the country. 5 more years of tory government and our armed forces will be reduced to three squaddies and an it graduate called paul who trys to ask /b/ for help with cyberattacks and makes memes calling putin bad.
Reform are undoubtedly worse than the Tory party.
dont really have any shot of winning.
Putin isn't playing the short game
No, but they have been wildly, disproportionately, effective in pushing some, frankly, fringe viewpoints. If the main aim is to sow discontent, chaos, distrust of democratic institutions etc, then it has been successful.
Tories just increased military spending. So, your theory falls flat. And Russians are not really keen on any particular policies (except Brexit as that split Europe). What matters to them far more is the destruction of political unity in the country. They've successfully accomplished that in America that's now split into two sides that really really hate each other. They want to do the same in all European countries as well. In the UK that means pushing Reform up as it's the party that stirs up the politics far more than the usual Tories v Labour split. Both big parties are united in their support of Ukraine and so are the people. Reform is doing its best to sow seeds of disunity to it.
It doesnt fall flat, our armed forces have been reduced in size and scope every single year since 2010.. you may look this up if you wish, upto the point where our own allies say we arent upto anything anymore [https://news.sky.com/story/us-general-warns-british-army-no-longer-top-level-fighting-force-defence-sources-reveal-12798365](https://news.sky.com/story/us-general-warns-british-army-no-longer-top-level-fighting-force-defence-sources-reveal-12798365) [https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-can-no-longer-defend-itself/](https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/britain-can-no-longer-defend-itself/) . They have decimated our defence capabilities perfectly on their own. So no my theory doesnt fall flat at all. its why alot of people who are in favour of having a strong military utterly despair at the tories.
Which part of increased defense spending you had trouble understanding? Everything you now wrote was about past (and doesn't apply only to the UK but almost all European countries that have been enjoying the peace dividend). Your claim was about future. The increased defense spending is about future not past. I don't how more clearly I can say that.
I said our armed forces will be reduced to, do you have comprehension issues? Also they have increased the budget for many years now whilst reducing personnel... so it doesnt really hold up that more money equates to more troops which is what i originally said. The point is 13 years in power has been reducing the army and there is no change in that trend.
Yes, as I said your claim was about *future* but the arguments that you presented were about the past. You didn't address the main argument that I presented (the UK is increasing its defence spending). I'd say, it's the job of the military to decide how they get best bang for buck for their 2.5% of GDP defence spending. If they decide it's by reducing personnel, then that's *their* decision, not government's. And you're wrong about increased spending. The UK defence spending as a percentage of GDP has decreased from 2010 (just like all other public sector spending) ([source ](https://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_defence_analysis)). If they now raise it back to 2.5%, then that would restore it to the same level as where it was then. So, there is no magic, it's all about money. If you don't invest in defence, then it's going to decline. If you do, then it's going to recover. It's not that complicated.
If you look at your own graph uk defence spending has risen yoy' just not as a % of gdp...
So? Have you ever heard of a thing called inflation? If it had been fixed in pound terms it would have meant reduction in real terms. Assuming that the soldiers' wages have increased along with others (so at the same speed as the economic growth), the falling share of GDP to defence means automatically that there will be fewer soldiers and only way to return previous levels is to increase the GDP share to the previous level.
According to the article, Russia is also, under the guise of British Patriots and Common Sense Britain, *promoting* support for Ukraine. Why would they promote the mainstream position if they wanted to increase polarisation? One wonders whether the hypothesis that all political "disunity" in the West originates from Russia is falsifiable.
It's hard to take this shit seriously because all I hear are its the RUSSIANs, I'm sure they are maybe involved but who knows at what level.
Why is it hard to take seriously? Russia views itself as in conflict with the West and is undertaking hybrid warfare against us. That's demonstrably true - and much more apparent on the continent. Part of this, though, is informational warfare, which it uses to destabilise the democratic process and to reduce trust in institutions. You can absolutely query the impact of this, but it is happening. And it would have been nice for the Russia report to have been released in 2019 rather than delayed.
Ok, read Timothy Snyder's book "the road to unfreedom" if you're interested in how Putin is working to undermine Western democracies.
I never said he's not but people just love to use it for literally everything now days.
I didn't say you said that Putin isn't. I don't know where that came from. I understood that you were interested in learning how much he is doing and I offered you a good source to start. You're of course free to ignore it but at least then don't say that nobody knows anything.
It would be more concerning if the interference was trying to engineering a Tory win. That would be a danger to the country’s future for sure.
Sunak pulling out all his “strong” moves to fight to not come third or fourth is the funniest timeline He’s said reform called him racist and are russian bots. But doesn’t even dream of catching labour 😂 😂