Month: August 2020

Christoper Steele, a former M16 officer who submitted evidence on illicit Russian activities in the country, wants the government to to take a proactive stance.

Steele had previously submitted dossiers to the Security Committee conducting a Russia inquiry. However, he was disappointed with the report released by the committee last month, saying the UK government badly underestimates the Russian threat.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, specifically those raised regarding the funds that flowed into the Conservative Party. The dossier presented evidence that the money came from individuals who have ties with Russia but later defected to become UK citizens.

Although parliament ministers are now contemplating on requiring foreign agents to register in the UK as a means of strengthening UK’s security laws, Mr Steele recommends that such laws must be framed carefully in order to be effective. He asserts that the UK government must also launch organised efforts to bar Russia from carrying out its plan of distorting and disrupting the political systems of countries, .

Former M16 Officer’s Explanation about the Russian Threat

The former M16 intelligence officer explained the Russian threat to Conservative MP Daniel Collins in the latter’s Infotagion podcast.

As a backgrounder, Christopher Steele took part in building the Trump-Russia dossier. The dossier gave the U.S. FBI team led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, evidence in a related investigation. The results of which led to the successful prosecution of several Trump allies and Russian individuals, who allegedly took part in Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign

Steele explained:

”Moscow’s goal is to create great partisanship and division, in order to create polarity within political systems; the likes of which have not been seen before in democracies.”

He asserts the need for the UK government to proactively engage the help of the country’s M15 and M16 security services, inasmuch as UK political parties are currently being targeted by way of cyber hacking and political donations. Citing the Brexit movement as an example, Steele said Kremln launched efforts to shatter consensus that led to extreme lengths of political debate.

He added that the UK government’s lax regulation over the flow of Russian money in the country, enabled the Kremlin to interfere with Brexit and other political issues during the past years. Although Moscow denied such allegations, Mr. Steele presented evidence to the Security Committed, showing leaked documents about UK-US trade talks that emerged before the 2019 elections.

The information was stolen by hacking the personal email account of Conservative MP Liam Fox and were subsequently published online. The Labour Party then used the leaked information in their 2019 campaign by claiming that the country’s National Health Services (NHS) would be put at risk.

Steele warns of more interference in the forthcoming 2020 U.S. election because other foreign governments that harbor concerns if Democratic contender Joe Biden wins in the November U.S. presidential election.

He argues that at present, the UK is on the defensive, with the West being weaker at this point since the end of the Cold War. He pointed out that the government has been slow in its response because of the vulnerabilities created by democracy, combined with modern technology; to which the country has yet to catch up in order to prevent adversaries from using and exploiting them.