‘Hypocrite’ British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has had to hurriedly row back after “dredging up” the old left-wing-article-of-faith conspiracy theory that Russia did successfully interfere in the 2016 Brexit Referendum, Nigel Farage has said.
Andy Burnham can’t be trusted to look after British sovereignty and the “vice-like grip Brussels has over him” is a matter of deep concern, Brexit leader Nigel Farage has said after the Prime Minister was accused of employing rhetoric attempting to undermine public faith in the outcome of the Brexit Referendum.
After PM Andy Burnham used a weekend appearance on ultra-establishment podcast The Rest is Politics, hosted by Blair-era spin doctor Alastair Campbell and anti-Brexit Tory Rory Stewart to re-animate a decade-old conspiracy theory that Russia successfully impacted the outcome of the 2016 vote, he was forced into a humiliating climb-down in Parliament on Monday.
It has long been the official Whitehall line, expressed by ministers and Prime Ministers of both the Conservative and Labour governments, that while Russia may have attempted to interfere in the largest single democratic exercise in British history, it did not succeed in influencing the outcome. In the form of words taken by the Prime Minister in his podcast talk, critics identified a clear implication going far beyond, stating that the interference wasn’t merely attempted, but actual.
Burnham had said, with definite emphasis: “I asked the question coming to Downing Street: ‘Well, was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia?’ I’ve had the clear answer that, yes, there was. These things are important now to put clearly on the record.”
Yet challenged on this in Parliament, he rowed back on Monday, insisting no such implication was made. Indeed, Burnham updated his rhetoric to claim that far from there being evidence of involvement, the government merely found it hard to believe Russia wouldn’t have at least tried. He said: “I implied no such thing in my comments… It is a matter of record, Mr Speaker, that Russian actors sought to interfere in the 2019 General Election. And we think it is inconceivable that that this was the first time… I didn’t at any point say that it altered the result”.
Brexit pioneer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage quickly pointed to Burnham’s hypocrisy on the matter, noting his long history of public statements that the Brexit referendum was settled, decided, and would cause real harm to the country by being re-opened, a position he apparently held up until the very day he managed to become Prime Minister.
Stating the Prime Minister had “dredged up” the Russian influence hoax to cover for his own lack of substance as his leadership reaches the 100 days mark, Mr Farage said through his new Substack outlet:
…in addition to debating me [on Britain’s relationship with Europe], the Prime Minister is also going to have to debate himself along the way. Well, his former self. The one who declared just this year that “the last thing we should do right now is rerun those [Brexit] arguments.”… On 4 June, he said, “rerunning Brexit now would be a mistake, because it would just entrench that feeling of division.” What happened to that sentiment?
… Hurling around false claims about foreign interference and causing social, political, and market instability with the vagueness of his pro-EU remarks, the Prime Minister is simply lurching (mostly to the left) into a decade-old void because he is desperate to find something to anchor his first 100 days in office. In doing so, he is showing himself to be personally weak and hypocritical.
If the British government really wants to re-open the conversation on foreign influence on British politics, it might be profitable to consider other sources, Mr Farage added. Recalling the nakedly partisan attempt by U.S. President Barack Obama to tell the British people how to vote — an intervention which, at the time, was thought by some to have had the opposite intended effect as Britons took the message with affront — Farage said:
Still, it’s not like foreign governments don’t try this stuff. It would be naive to think that, especially given former President Barack Obama’s overt intervention in Brexit, when he flew to London to tell Britons they would go to the “back of the queue” for a trade deal with America if we voted to leave.
Not only has no one demanded an investigation into that foreign interference in our democratic process, but disgracefully, it appears that it was undertaken in collusion with David Cameron’s “Conservative” government at the time… if you want to talk about foreign interference in British politics, you have to start with Brussels. It should worry everybody that it seems to have a vice-like grip on Andy Burnham.
It should worry us all still further that Burnham seems so happy to be in this submissive role.
British Conservative Party-aligned broadsheet The Daily Telegraph carried a line from a Tory source on Burnham’s comments of recent days, which outright accused the Prime Minister of attempting to undermine the legitimacy of the Referendum as a move on the road to overturn its results. They are reported to have said: “There can be no doubt that his words to the Rest is Politics were intended to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the referendum result… Andy Burnham has all but conceded this was a deliberate ploy intended to sow more division, reopen the battles of the past, and bolster his own case for rejoining the EU.”
