The Guardian’s Luke Harding is live now replying to your questions – from his new book on Trump and Putin to the state of the war in Ukraine, his explusion from Russia and his career as a foreign correspondent
Ask a question: log in or sign up here
IscoBusquet asks: The report into Russian political interference in the UK stated that the security services were not given permission to look into any interference in the Brexit referendum because of political sensitivity. Is it possible for them to revisit this?
Luke:
We never got to see the confidential annex attached to the Russia Report. (If someone has a copy, please send to me ℅ Guardian!) But yes, it revealed that none of the state agencies investigated Russian interference in the run-up to the 2016 referendum. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives are especially keen to examine what happened.
We know the following: that the Kremlin backed Brexit, seeing it as a way of weakening the UK, politically and economically, and estranging it from its European partners. Russian trolls posted thousands of pro-Brexit messages, as well as inflammatory stories about immigrants. I suspect there was espionage too. We need to find out what happened…
Ye…
