(ii) Narrow coverage
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.
49,50 ***. ***.51
50 We note that Arron Banks became the biggest donor in British political history when he gave £8m to the
Leave.EU campaign. In October 2018, the Electoral Commission – which had been investigating the source
of this donation – referred the case to the National Crime Agency, which investigated it ***. In September
2019, the National Crime Agency announced that it had concluded the investigation, having found no evidence
that any criminal offences had been committed under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act
2000 or company law by any of the individuals or organisations referred to it by the Electoral Commission.
51 ***
45. This focus on *** indicates that open source material (for example, the studies of
attempts to influence the referendum using RT and Sputnik, or social media campaigns
referred to earlier) was not fully taken into account. Given that the Committee has
previously been informed that open source material is now fully represented in the
Government’s understanding of the threat picture, it was surprising to us that in this instance
it was not.
46. Whilst it may be true that some issues highlighted in open source did not require the
secret investigative capabilities of the intelligence and security Agencies or were at the
periphery of their remits, the Agencies nonetheless have capabilities which allow them to
‘stand on the shoulders’ of open source coverage: for example, GCHQ might attempt to
look behind the suspicious social media accounts which open source analysis has identified
to uncover their true operators (and even disrupt their use), or SIS might specifically task
an agent to provide information on the extent and nature of any Russian influence
campaigns.52 However, we have found *** which suggests that ***. ***.