BRITISH security services will investigate who is funding far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, according to a former top spy.
Christopher Steele, a former head of MI6’s Russia desk, said the security services would be investigation whether his financial backers had links to the Kremlin, amid fears Russian president Vladimir Putin is stoking tensions in the UK from afar.
He claimed this could extend to Reform leader Nigel Farage, after the MP queried whether the Southport knife attacker may have been “known to the security services”.
Steele told Times Radio: “I think the security service will be looking very carefully at the instigators of these activities, including people like Tommy Robinson, even conceivably Nigel Farage, who incidentally said that we were being misinformed by the government about Southport.
“It’s in very much Russia’s interest to destabilise countries like Britain and the United States.” Security services will be “looking very carefully” at the instigators of recent riots, like Tommy Robinson, for links to Russia, says @Chris_D_Steele. 📻 https://t.co/sO461gHoYq pic.twitter.com/Sv7DgFkthG
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) August 11, 2024
“They’ll be looking at things like their travel movements, who they’ve been in touch with, monetary transfers and so on, because that will reveal or not, as the case may be, a pattern of behaviour which can lead to some conclusions about the degree to which Russia has been interfering in this situation.”
Steele, who worked for MI6 between 1987 and 2009 and has accused Russia in the past of orchestrated disinformation campaigns, said it was “clear” the Kremlin had some involvement in stoking the riots.
He said: “When you look at the original disinformation that surrounded the Southport killings, that does seem to have come from a Russian-linked website.”
Steele has previously carried out investigation’s into Russian interference in Western politics. In 2016, he published a dossier which claimed that Russia had helped to elect Donald Trump as US president.
Some key claims, such as that Putin favoured Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton and that the Kremlin had waged an influence campaign to aid the Republican campaign, were later confirmed in independent investigations.
