The release of the Russia report has long been a cause championed by some Remainers. The idea took hold that sitting in some select committee chamber was a report detailing how the 2016 EU referendum was influenced by Russian state actors to such a degree that it materially affected the result. The government has been trying to stifle the release of the report for that precise reason; once it sees the light of day, the Russia report will be the thing that turns the tide on Brexit. It will become so apparent that the referendum result happened via bent means, Leavers will have their false consciousness ripped away and leaving the transition period will seem like madness to everyone, Boris Johnson included. Brexit, at long last, will have been vanquished.
Now that the Russia report has finally been publicly released, we get to test this theory. Good news: the report has a whole section on Russian interference during the EU referendum campaign. And contrary to some of the crowing by Leavers on social media, it does not confirm that there was no Russian interference into the result. In fact, it states that:
‘…the Committee’s view that the UK Intelligence Community should produce an analogous assessment of potential Russian interference in the EU referendum and that an unclassified summary of it be published.’
The EU referendum section is actually annoyingly open-ended and allows Leavers and Remainers to draw their own conclusions. Plus ça change.
Despite some heavily redacted portions, the report does not pull its punches in other sections, thankfully. The report lays bare the link between Russian state activities and organised crime and how that is a specific risk to the UK; how Russian money is being laundered in large amounts in London and that this has led to Russian state actors being able to influence levers of powers within Britain.
You can see why the government might have wanted to sit on the report; it’s not exactly complimentary about the way the relationship with Russia has been handled over the last decade. But this has nothing to do with the EU referendum, which was the Remainer theory. All this brings me to make a plea now to my fellow Remainers: please stop going on about Russia as it pertains to the EU referendum.
If you want to read the Russia report and remain convinced the EU referendum was rigged, you can find straws of comfort. The ISC report does indeed criticise the government for not being proactive in seeking out Russian interference in the referendum, particularly after it was clear that there may have been Russian interference in the 2014 Scottish referendum. Yet I would ask why at this stage you still want to bother? The whole obsession with the Russians having corrupted the 2016 referendum has stifled pro-EU debate in the UK, leaving it stuck exactly in the wrong place. A report that was supposed to change everything has finally been released – and will lead to nothing changing. Take a deep breath and realise that the obsession with the Russians corrupting the referendum has been unhealthy and further, has been massively distracting. Instead of going on about some select committee report, why not talk more about the benefits of being in the largest single market on Earth as well as the ability to live, work and retire throughout most of a continent that Britain is part of?
All of that has been massively undercut over the last four years by a constant need to tell 52 per cent of the population that the only reason they voted the way they did in 2016 is because a Russian bot brainwashed them. That’s the thing about the whole ‘Russian conspiracy’ concept from a Remainer perspective: even if it were completely true, it’s still a terrible campaigning device. It hasn’t won hearts and minds but rather has given Leavers even more reason to dig in. The release of the Russia report should be a chance for Remainers to move on and let go of this obsession.
Accepting the legitimacy of the 2016 result as a genuinely obtained result is long overdue for Remainers. Once this happens, then perhaps we can focus on what to do next. A no-deal Brexit appears to be on the cards; there is plenty of ground for debate on the success of Brexit once the transition comes to a close and Brexit properly takes hold. You will only be able to do this if you stop trying to fight 2016 over and over again, complaining that the first time around, it was rigged. If you want to figure out what to do next, I repeat, you need to stop talking about the Russians fixing the EU referendum. Please, just stop it, for all our sakes.
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