The Russia report proves it – Britain’s spies have failed

As the long-overdue intelligence and security committee report into Russian interference in the UK is finally published – after a needless and politicised delay – most eyes are (rightly) focused on claims around Brexit, Russian infiltration of the British establishment and killings on UK soil.

But there’s a section of the report that, while less immediately startling, must not be missed and it comes as the report discusses potential threats to UK elections, referendums and our broader political process.

There’s some reassurance in the fact that our low-tech election system, which is still primarily based on manually counting paper ballots marked by pencil (or pens, if you bring your own), is remarkably hard to hack directly.

There are no shortage of concerns around disinformation operations during such votes, though: the use of strategically hacked and leaked information to disrupt news cycles; so-called ‘bot’ accounts on social media that spread messages, memes, division and harassment; and the use of propaganda channels such as RT.

The problem for the committee when it tried to gauge these issues was that the intelligence agencies had simply not looked into them. When it asked MI5 about the use of ‘bots’, for example, the report states 'MI5 initially provided just six lines of text'.

Some will immediately jump to harsh conclusions based on this incuriosity: the government won’t allow investigations into this because, they will say, people near the top of it were complicit with Russian interference – jumping wildly beyond the evidence and putting two and two together to make 20.

There is an unedifying lack of curiosity into Brexit or electoral interference from current ministers that does not reflect well on anyone involved. But more subtly and yet profoundly worrying is that lack of curiosity appears to extend to the intelligence agencies themselves, who free of partisan concerns seem similarly determined not to play any role in examining possible interference in elections.

Astonishingly, the report notes the UK’s intelligence agencies 'do not view themselves as holding primary responsibility for the active defence of the UK’s democratic processes from hostile foreign interference' and 'appeared determined to distance themselves from any suggestion that they might have a prominent role in relation to the democratic process itself'.

The UK’s highly-skilled, well-resourced intelligence agencies – with wide-ranging surveillance powers across the internet and communications networks – instead claimed that the role of protecting the UK’s democratic processes lied with… the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the traditional 'ministry of fun', handed to give a cabinet spot to someone No. 10 likes but does not traditionally rate.

DCMS itself, not unreasonably, did not seem to share the intelligence agencies’ view that it was our first line of defence: 

“DCMS told us that its function is largely confined to the broad HMG policy regarding the use of disinformation rather than an assessment of, or operations against, hostile state campaigns.

The result, the report concludes is that 'the issue of defending the UK’s democratic processes and discourse has appeared to be something of a ‘hot potato’, with no one organisation recognising itself as having an overall lead'.

There can be no mistake that this is an utterly shameful state of affairs and a spectacular dereliction of duty. Elections are at the very heart of any democratic nation and any bid to disrupt people’s faith and confidence in them by an adversary should be a matter of the very highest priority.

The lack of action to stop such disruption – and the lack even of reliable and robust investigations into what is happening – contributes to that loss of faith. With their inter-agency squabbling and desire to avoid responsibility for a politically fraught area, the UK’s agencies have committed professional neglect.

It is not hard to see why no-one would want the brief on electoral interference. It will be mind-numbingly complicated and mired in political conflict. At what point does a legitimate intervention from a foreign state become interference? What’s the threshold for attributing a suspect ‘bot’ account? What happens if ministers don’t share your view on interference that happens to benefit them? Do proposed measures threaten freedom of speech?

None of these are easy tasks. But it is the difficult tasks that the UK’s security services are there for. Just as ministers and advisors deserve political flak if they refuse to take action in the wake of this report, so do intelligence agencies face the fire for their abdication here.

If we can’t trust them with protecting the very core of our democratic processes, why the hell should we trust them with anything else?