The Russia report proves it – Britain’s spies have failed

As the long-overdue intelligence and security committee report into Russian interference in the UK is finally published – after a needless and politicised delay – most eyes are (rightly) focused on claims around Brexit, Russian infiltration of the British establishment and killings on UK soil.

But there’s a section of the report that, while less immediately startling, must not be missed and it comes as the report discusses potential threats to UK elections, referendums and our broader political process.

There’s some reassurance in the fact that our low-tech election system, which is still primarily based on manually counting paper ballots marked by pencil (or pens, if you bring your own), is remarkably hard to hack directly.

There are no shortage of concerns around disinformation operations during such votes, though: the use of strategically hacked and leaked information to disrupt news cycles; so-called ‘bot’ accounts on social media that spread messages, memes, division and harassment; and the use of propaganda channels such as RT.

The problem for the committee when it tried to gauge these issues was that the intelligence agencies had simply not looked into them.