Russian interference in 2019 UK election

[Sheepy]

There was a clue in the video, it is all about narratives. Lets just say while the Russians were pushing the narrative that suited the UK government but not the majority of the electorate, all was good, but since the UK narrative on certain issues have changed, the Russian narrative is no longer the right one.

[Thomas]

The Scottish media is in a total frenzy this morning over the long-delayed publication of the "Russia Report" into alleged interference by Vladimir Putin's regime in UK politics.

The Herald, Scotsman, Mail, Express and the i all lead their front pages with the story today, and the Telegraph did it yesterday. So we thought you might like to see the entirety of the indyref coverage that's actually in the 55-page report.

Here it is:

That's all of it. The whole thing. The total evidence of "Russian meddling" is a single paragraph, so redacted that it doesn't make any sense, based on a single example of something that had allegedly happened AFTER the referendum, and which was in any event supposedly intended for a Russian domestic audience, not voters in Scotland.

The meaning of the phrase "credible open source commentary" is explained very well by Craig Murray here, but will already be familiar to Wings readers under the name "The Some Arsehole Doctrine". All it means is "any old rubbish written by some clown that the UK government happens to want you to believe".

In this particular case the clown is Hugh "Ben" Nimmo, a man incapable of even being honest about his own name, and who was paid £5,000 a month by the UK government specifically so he'd say what it wanted him to say under the auspices of the amusingly Orwellian-named spook bureau "Integrity Initiative"

.

https://wingsoverscotland.com/return-to-arsehole-mountain/

[Thomas]

"Credible Open Source Reporting", the Intelligence Services and Scottish Independence 285
July 21, 2020  in Uncategorized by craig

I write as somebody who held Top Secret clearance for 21 years, with extensive daily use of Top Secret material that entire time, and the highest possible specific codeword clearance above Top Secret for 11 years. I personally conducted for the FCO the largest "action on" operation in GCHQ history. ("Action on" is the process of declassifying top secret material for, in my particular case, government to government use). I have also given evidence in person in a three hour appearance before Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee.

The BBC has all morning been trailing the imminent report by the Intelligence and Security Committee as showing Russian interference in the Scottish referendum campaign according to "credible open source reporting". It is hardly a surprise that Westminster has weaponised its report to attack not the British Establishment but Scottish Independence.

"Credible open source reporting" is a piece of formal security service intelligence assessment jargon. It is very important you know exactly what it means. It means material not from secret human intelligence or from communications intercept, but material which has been published, in the media or academia. Stuff that is as available to you or I as it is to the intelligence services. Not intelligence material at all. Nothing to do with the Intelligence and Security Committee.

The last high profile deployment of the "credible open source reporting" formulation was the dirty dossier on Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction, where the PhD thesis of Ibrahim al-Marashi was the source for untrue claims about Iraqi WMD. Al-Marashi, now a Professor, states his work was distorted and altered to suit the agenda of the Iraq War.

    Mr Marashi's student thesis, Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation, was not only plagiarised. It was also altered, as the British government and intelligence establishment sought to strengthen what in truth was uncertain evidence about Saddam's efforts to develop WMD.

The point of "open source reporting" is that it is published and we can all see it. We could have seen al-Marashi's PhD thesis. But Blair's Iraq Dossier did not give the name of the source. It did not say "according to the student Ibrahim al-Marashi". It said "Intelligence services say that credible open source reporting says...".

"Credible open source reporting" is a propaganda formulation designed to fool you and give a false imprimatur to any dubious piece of published work.

So the grand Intelligence and Security Committee will not say "According to the article in the Herald by the Russophobe nutter David Leask and the publicity seeking Jennifer Jones"... It will say "According to the intelligence services, credible open source reporting says..."

But actually it is absolutely no more than the former. Dressed up falsely as "intelligence".

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/07/credible-open-source-reporting-the-intelligence-services-and-scottish-independence/

[papasmurf]

We live in quiet times and the media has to take what it can get.

Quiet times? You must be joking. 

[Borchester]

Well who knows, with misinformation, disinformation, fake news and media used for purely psychological politics, maybe it all went bottom up when the KGB started buying up corporate media and half of London. While the other half was bought up by the Saudis, strange bedfellows maybe, but it seems to work for them.

What!

You mean you are a russian bot sheepski , and as an evil minion of vladimir putin , with the help of his KGB mind control you forced the people of england and wales to vote for brexit against their will?

Piss taking aside , im surprised they think there is any political mileage still to be had out of this topic.

We live in quiet times and the media has to take what it can get.

[Sheepy]

Oh yeah about Theresa Mays conflicts of interest? funny thing is a lot of politicians have them.

[Thomas]

This week saw publication of the long-awaited Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) report on alleged Russian interference in British affairs. Despite media hysteria, the report contained no new revelations, just all-too-familiar catastrophising about Moscow's ill-defined "disinformation" efforts and warnings of the undue influence rich Russians (most of whom are actually Kremlin opponents) have bought themselves.

The most salient point for supporters of Scottish independence to consider was the allegation that Moscow's interference efforts extended to the 2014 indyref. As Wings pointed out earlier this week, however, the "evidence" to support this sensational claim amounted to nothing more than a heavily-redacted single paragraph, citing "credible open source commentary" as its sole source.

A look at the paragraph's accompanying footnote reveals the "credible open source" commentator was Ben Nimmo of the Atlantic Council. For those in the fortunate position of being unfamiliar with his work, Nimmo is known for, among other things, falsely identifying a Syrian-Australian blogger and a British pensioner as Russian bots – so clearly someone whose expertise should be relied upon to determine the extent of Russian infiltration into Scottish politics.

Among the 'Russian Bots' identified for UK government by Ben Nimmo (Institute for Statecraft/ Bellingcat/ DFLabs & Atlantic Council) was Maram Susli. She raises serious questions about his methods, and, implicitly, motivations.

https://twitter.com/tim_hayward_/status/1072070981232062464?lang=en


...and the "british pensioner russian bot"

https://youtu.be/nuWoLTV9StU

[Thomas]

Well who knows, with misinformation, disinformation, fake news and media used for purely psychological politics, maybe it all went bottom up when the KGB started buying up corporate media and half of London. While the other half was bought up by the Saudis, strange bedfellows maybe, but it seems to work for them.

What!

You mean you are a russian bot sheepski , and as an evil minion of vladimir putin , with the help of his KGB mind control you forced the people of england and wales to vote for brexit against their will?

Piss taking aside , im surprised they think there is any political mileage still to be had out of this topic.

[Sheepy]

Well who knows, with misinformation, disinformation, fake news and media used for purely psychological politics, maybe it all went bottom up when the KGB started buying up corporate media and half of London. While the other half was bought up by the Saudis, strange bedfellows maybe, but it seems to work for them.
I somehow doubt those that do know are hardly likely to be telling us all everything they know anyway.

[johnofgwent]

If you are happy that Russia is trying to influence election results in the UK ....

I take that as an unwarranted attack.

I am not HAPPY that he is doing it. I am not HAPPY that all sorts of people in all sorts of places across the world are trying to assert influence on the voters in several places that claim democracy and respect for the voice of the people, but I am not so thick as to consider it does not happen. Your choice of phrase above seems to sneer at those of us who understand this goes on....

[Sampanviking]

Russia is still finding help from willing useful idiots parroting planted misinformation and their own prejudices...

Why is Russian money funding the Tory party?

You must admit making donations — all legal under electoral rules and properly declared — is a highly-effective way for Russia to foment unrest.
Played properly, even totally legit donations from convinced Tory supporters of Russian origin can be used by Putin's disruptors and helpers...

Hang on a sec Pat, for all your implied barbs, you seem to forget the central fact about the Oligarchs in London. The overwhelming majority of these guys, did not emerge under Putin, but made their money under the Western stooge Yeltsin. The Friends of Israel comments are perfectly legit in this situation as a large proportion of them are gentleman of a certain persuasion, who were able to raise vast sums via the West based diaspora and buy up large chunks of Post Soviet Industrial Infrastructure for a song.
They fled to London from Russia, after Putin came to power and started bringing them to book. These men are the enemies of Putin, and it is there payments to UK politicans that will have played a massive role in the constructing the current toxic and hostile state of Russo-UK relations.
To then further take these payments from the Oligarchs to the UK politicians as evidence of Kremlin interference in the UK political process is disingenuous in the extreme and a notion created entirely by our own establishment.

The phrase "Russian interference in the UK Democratic Process" is simply misdirection. There are some Russians interfering, but these are Trumpesque billionaires acting for themselves and with no interest in the benefit to the Russian state.

As to more Cyber based activities, well maybe this is due to the UK giving a safe haven to men who are considered major league criminals in Russia and who use their wealth and power to leverage against the Russian state.

[patman post]

Russia is still finding help from willing useful idiots parroting planted misinformation and their own prejudices...

Why is Russian money funding the Tory party?

You must admit making donations — all legal under electoral rules and properly declared — is a highly-effective way for Russia to foment unrest.
Played properly, even totally legit donations from convinced Tory supporters of Russian origin can be used by Putin's disruptors and helpers...

[papasmurf]

Russia is still finding help from willing useful idiots parroting planted misinformation and their own prejudices...

Why is Russian money funding the Tory party?

[patman post]

This thread appears to have turned into people whose politics and wealth we hate. Citing current private individuals is pointless — they're no match for bankers, industrialists and plain robber barons who rose to power in the late 1800s.
Families forming founding empires that influenced governments include Baring, Goldman-Sachs, Morgan, Rothschild, Rockefeller, etc, etc, etc.
George Soros is a kitten compared to these.
Russia is different — it's hurting. With a GDP of less than $2tr, it's trailing China ($13tr) and the US ($20tr). Having lost its empire and sphere of influence, it's become a personal fiefdom and a mafia state, with politics as a veneer. Its boss has a personal income that probably dwarfs that of any African dictator or Western financier and possibly vies with Saudi for first place. These days, Russia runs a skilled world-wide intelligence and disruption network using paid for and planted personnel, Kremlin controlled news media, social media trolls, etc. All are mobilised promoting discontent with among Right and Left with the intent of weakening the world to increase Russian influence. Unfortunately, Russia is still finding help from willing useful idiots parroting planted misinformation and their own prejudices...

[papasmurf]

If we are to discuss manipulation in british politics we should perhaps have a few words about George Soros while we are at it.

And Benjamin Netanyahu.