The Labour chair has given Nigel Farage 24 hours to report to security services the claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors or the party will do it for him.
In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Anna Turley said it was “in the public and national interest” to ensure that a suspected overseas hack of a senior politician’s phone by a hostile state was properly investigated.
A Reform spokesperson said the incident had been reported to “the relevant authorities”, without saying who these were.
Scepticism has continued over Farage’s claim, made in a Sunday newspaper, that “foreign state actors”, most likely serving Moscow, had accessed his phone and leaked information about the £5m gift he received from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire based in Thailand.
In her letter, Turley asked Farage, who has largely avoided media scrutiny in recent weeks, to set out why Harborne gave him the money, in the run-up to the 2024 general election. Farage initially said the sum was intended to pay for his security, but later characterised it as a reward for his campaigning on Brexit.
According to an account given via “Reform sources” to the Mail on Sunday, after the Guardian revealed details of the undeclared £5m gift, Farage became suspicious about how the information emerged, and handed over his phone for “forensic analysis by counter-espionage experts”.
This supposedly concluded that a malware attack on the phone, most likely originating from Russia, had compromised his phone, email and bank accounts.
If it had happened, Turley wrote to Farage, “this would constitute a serious cybercrime and a potential hostile-state operation directed at the leader of a British political party”.
She went on: “Quite apart from the implications for you personally, the alleged crime is an incredibly serious one with potential wider implications for Britain’s national security, the integrity of our politics and public confidence in our democratic system.
“It is therefore essential that any evidence of hostile-state hacking or foreign interference is placed in the hands of the proper authorities, so that it can be fully and independently investigated.
“With that in mind, please can you urgently confirm whether you have reported the alleged hacking of your phone, email and bank accounts to the police and/or to the relevant security services, including the National Cyber Security Centre?”
The letter added: “If we do not receive confirmation within 24 hours that this matter has been reported to the police, the Labour party will, in the public and national interest, report the matter ourselves to the police and the relevant national security authorities, on the basis of your public statements and the published reports.”
On Monday, Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, called Farage’s version of events “an entirely unsubstantiated claim and one without any merit”, saying it would be difficult to conclude the involvement of Russia based on the examination of a phone.
Martin said given the seriousness of the matter, Farage should formally report what happened to the authorities.
Farage received the money from Harborne before he announced he would stand as a candidate in the 2024 election, when he was not an MP. As such, he has argued that it was a personal matter and did not need to be declared.
Parliamentary rules say any potentially relevant interests should be declared from the 12 months before someone becomes an MP. The parliamentary commissioner for standards has begun an investigation into whether Farage broke any rules by not declaring it.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “It has been reported to the relevant authorities. It would be inappropriate to comment further while investigations are ongoing.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
