𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

If you think about hybrid warfare and espionage, I’m sure the mind is immediately drawn to bombs, wiretaps and honeytraps. But in the era of social media, poisonous narratives, bot farms and contested facts, information is becoming a weapon of choice for Britain’s enemies.

Russia and Iran pick contentious issues and create propaganda campaigns targeting both sides of a given issue. They exaggerate, manipulate and in many cases lie to exacerbate the fraying social fabric in the UK. The idea is to drive an ever-increasing wedge between different sections of society. Then confidence begins to collapse in the idea of the state.

It’s what made Andy Burnham’s intervention on Brexit this weekend so astounding. It’s a vote that divided families, groups of friends and the nation as a whole in 2016. That continued through the negotiations with the EU, 2020 when we finally left and has continued as the PM continues to show a bit of leg to Brussels.

As Sir Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, warned, Moscow and Tehran will not need a second invitation to wreak havoc. And the propagandists won’t have believed their luck, after attempting to influence the vote in 2016, that they are still being held up as some kind of master strategists. They are not. They are, as Sir Ken described, “opportunists”.

The Prime Minister’s political opponents have been telling me that Mr Burnham is “playing into their hands” precisely as they ramp up their assassination, terror, kidnap and arson conspiracies in the UK. The timing couldn’t be worse.

And one MP highlighted this section of the PM’s interview with The Rest Is Politics: “These things are important now to put clearly on the record, and I believe help voters in Germany and France understand that some of this politics is instigated via our enemies, namely, Russia.”

It jars with what Sir Ken told reporters on Tuesday. The intelligence chief said Russia tried to interfere in the vote, but said a distinction must be drawn between successful operations. Mr Burnham’s comments seemingly claim otherwise.

And the MI5 head, as he spoke to reporters on Tuesday, repeatedly warned that community cohesion is something Britain’s enemies are trying to weaponise. He said: “Our adversaries want to abuse our very freedoms to polarise us. Our cohesion counts.”

As Russia and Iran ramp up a myriad of operations here in the UK, the Prime Minister would do well not to wrap a present up for them, complete with a bow and a shiny label. Picking an issue that still casts a divisive shadow over British politics to play to the galleries is a gift the Russians and Iranians are unlikely to ignore.

Mr Burnham must not let the temptation of party politics come before national security again, or we may end up looking at an even more divided society. If he reverses Brexit, we certainly will.