Russia sought to meddle in the 2014 Scottish referendum and intelligence agencies should produce an assessment of potential interference in the Brexit referendum, a report by the British parliament's intelligence and security committee says.
Two young girls holding saltires, watch the entertainment outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on September 18, 2014, during Scotland's independence referendum. Photo: AFP / Lesley Martin
"There has been credible open source commentary suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014," the report, which was finished in March 2019, said.
The report was leaked ahead of its publication time by the Guido Fawkes website. Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in the West, casting the United States and Britain as gripped by anti-Russian hysteria.
In response to the report, the Kremlin said Russia has never interfered in another country's electoral processes.
When discussing the EU referendum, the UK parliamentary report is heavily redacted.
"In response to our request for written evidence at the outset of the Inquiry, MI5 initially provided just six lines of text. It stated that ***, before referring to academic studies," the redacted version reads.
"It is nonetheless 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 report said.
-Reuters