A number of classified documents related to the Brexit campaign have been leaked by hackers presumed to be Russian.
Private emails from former British spymaster Richard Dearlove, leading Brexit campaigner Gisela Stuart, pro-Brexit historian Robert Toombs, and other supporters of Britain’s divorce from the EU, which was finalised in January 2020, have been published, according to the website “Very English Coop d’Etat.”
According to Reuters, the aforementioned individuals are members of a hardcore pro-Brexit faction in the UK that is secretly calling the shots.
The “English Coop” website makes a number of claims, including that Dearlove was involved in a plot by Brexit hardliners to depose Theresa May, who had reached a separation agreement with the EU in early 2019 and replace her with Johnson, who took a more extreme stance.
They claim the “coup plotters” then manipulated their puppet, dubbed “sneaky straw head,” by infiltrating Number 10 with hidden agents and blackmailing the Prime Minister in cooperation with American media moguls.
The “English Coop” website was linked to the Alphabet-owned business known as “Cold River,” a Russia-based hacking outfit, according to Shane Huntley, who oversees Google’s Threat Analysis Group.
“Technical indications allow us to observe that,” Huntley added.
Huntley claimed that the entire operation had “obvious technical ties” between it all, from Cold River’s hacking attempts to publicising the disclosures.
While journalists should not be afraid to cover authenticated content provided by the leak, according to Thomas Rid, a cybersecurity specialist at Johns Hopkins University, they should tread carefully.
“If there is significant detail in the leak, it is equally important to note out that the material came from an opposing intelligence agency, especially during a time of war,” Rid added.
The dataset is available on the DDoSecrets website.
