Britain just accused Russia of rigging the Brexit vote
1 hour ago · 12 October 2026Share
Official portrait of Andy Burnham in 2026.House of Commons · CC BY 3.0
Andy Burnham just did something no UK prime minister has ever done.
He said, out loud, that Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit vote.
He said it on The Rest Is Politics, a podcast hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, released about a day ago.
Andy Burnham says quote "I asked the question coming to Downing Street: was there interference from Russia?"
He says the answer he got back was yes.
Ten years of arguments about Brexit. And a British prime minister just said, on the record, that Russia had a hand in it.
So here's the background. Andy Burnham became prime minister in July. He says one of his first moves was asking officials that direct question.
But here's the catch. He gave no evidence.
No detail on what the interference actually was. No name for the intelligence assessment. No document published alongside it.
So right now, this is a claim. Not a dossier.
And it isn't coming from nowhere, either.
Back in 2020, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee looked into Russian interference in UK politics. What it found was awkward. The government had never done a deep assessment of Russia's role in the 2016 referendum. It just hadn't looked hard enough to say either way.
That same report did confirm something else though. Russia interfered in Scotland's 2014 independence referendum, using state media and troll accounts.
So the gap Andy Burnham is filling now is a gap his own Parliament pointed out six years ago.
And he's not stopping at Britain.
The rest of this story is for members.
London: Houses of Parliament and The Palace of Westminster. File photo. Tilman2007 · CC BY-SA 4.0
Andy Burnham says he talked about the far-right Alternative for Germany party with Friedrich Merz, Germany's Chancellor, when the two met in Berlin. He says Friedrich Merz told him the party is clearly linked to Russia, and funded by it.
Andy Burnham says quote "help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely Russia."
So that's a British prime minister telling German and French voters their own politics might be getting steered from Moscow too.
And there's a pattern here.
Last month, Andy Burnham told the UN General Assembly that Russia also tried to interfere in the UK's 2019 general election. In that same speech, he said Britain should rethink its relationship with the EU, including possibly rejoining it. He said Brexit never delivered on "taking back control" and left Britain weaker on the economy and on immigration.
So the Russia claim and the rejoin-the-EU question are landing together, from the same prime minister, within weeks of each other.
Reaction at home splits exactly how you'd expect.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, says the statement needed to be said by a prime minister, and that after the Conservatives suppressed the truth for years, this took courage.
Stephen Doughty, a Foreign Office minister, told Times Radio that Russia is trying to interfere in democracies right across Europe, not only in Britain. He wouldn't go into detail on 2016 specifically though.
Russia's answer hasn't moved an inch. It keeps denying it meddles in other countries' elections and referendums, and calls Britain's reaction anti-Russian hysteria.
So where does that leave things?
The UK voted 52 to 48 per cent to leave the EU in 2016. Ten years later, its own prime minister is saying Russia had a hand in that result. Without saying how. Without producing anything that proves it.
What's missing is almost everything that would turn this from a claim into a case. What the interference actually was. Which intelligence Andy Burnham was shown. Whether Downing Street plans to publish anything more.
Until it does, this accusation stands on his word alone.
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