Labour MP claims Russian president interfered in Brexit referendum
A British lawmaker has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin might have had a hand in the Brexit referendum.
Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, a prominent Remain supporter, said it was "highly probable" that Putin interfered in the June 23 referendum when nearly 52 percent of British voters opted to leave the European Union.
Bradshaw’s claim comes after the CIA accused Russia of hacking into the US 2016 presidential election in order to help Republican Donald Trump defeat his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
“What President Putin cannot achieve militarily he is already achieving using cyber and propaganda warfare,” the MP told the House of Commons on Tuesday.
"I don’t think we have even begun to wake up to what Russia is doing when it comes to cyber warfare,” he said.
"Not only their interference, now proven, in the American presidential campaign, [but] probably in our referendum. We don’t have the evidence for that yet. But I think it’s highly probable."
He also claimed that Russia encouraged the huge flow of migrants into Europe in order to destabilize the EU.
The remarks, however, were mocked by other MPs, with one senior Tory lawmaker deeming them worthy of Pravda, a Russian broadsheet newspaper, formerly the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Britain was a “long way from the Cold War if it's now Labour MPs who invent Russian subversion,” another MP said.
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said, “I would ask him to bring forward what evidence he has that Russia hacked the referendum.”
Bradshaw was one of the 83 rebels who voted against a Commons motion last week, saying British Prime Minister Theresa May should trigger Article 50 next March.
May has promised to begin the process in March and complete it by 2019. However, those plans were delayed when the UK High Court required a parliamentary vote for that purpose.
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