A Tory grandee today condemned No 10’s refusal to publish a report on alleged Russian influence in British politics as “absurd”.
Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said the delay in releasing the report by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee was “not normal”.
Sir Malcolm, who was once chairman of the ISC, added that the decision not to publish would leave the impression that the Government was seeking to hide something from the public.
Ministers have insisted the document is going through the proper Whitehall process for sensitive reports and just needs a few more weeks for this work to be done.
However, this explanation was flatly rejected by former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who chaired the ISC before Parliament was dissolved.
Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state, yesterday criticised the failure to publish the report as “shameful and inexplicable”.
Sir Malcolm told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “When you have a report on whether there has been Russian interference in our elections, in our domestic politics, and we have a general election coming up — which means that the ISC is dissolved as Parliament is dissolved — then Hillary Clinton is entirely correct, it’s an absurd position that No 10 Downing Street have put themselves in.”
Asked if the delay in publishing the analysis was normal, he said: “No, it’s not normal.”
The report is not believed to contain any “smoking gun” evidence that is damaging to the Government or Conservative Party, but instead some “very useful information” about alleged security threats posed by Russia. It includes a section on elections.
Sir Malcolm stressed that if there was a “legitimate reason” for withholding the report the Prime Minister should have explained this to Mr Grieve, on Privy Council terms that mean their discussion would have been kept secret — but he believed this had not happened.
The Government said it had not seen evidence of “successful” Russian interference in UK elections or the 2016 vote to leave the EU.
Cabinet minister Rishi Sunak insisted yesterday: “You can’t just release reports that contain sensitive information that impacts our national security.
“It is absolutely normal that reports like this go through a period of vetting which does take several weeks to make sure that they are safe or there are bits that need to be redacted.”
The Electoral Commission is urging the next Government to bring in fresh legislation to thwart foreign powers from being able to sway elections in the UK.
