![]() Again, the proposal appears to come to nothing. "He says that the people he has in mind are highly expert at this sort of espionage," Prins tells an associate, excitedly. Dearlove complains about the "mafia of disloyal civil servants (cardinals of the old church)" overseeing the Brexit talks - but in the end, the chatter comes to nothing, after the former spook reports his sources have no valuable intelligence.Įlsewhere, Prins claims that Dearlove wants to get the “maximum intelligence” on anti-Brexit campaign group Best for Britain “and their co-conspirators.” He enthuses about suggestions Dearlove could even get former CIA colleagues involved. ![]() Somewhat incredibly, the emails include talk of retired MI6 boss Dearlove commissioning research operations against the most senior British officials involved in the negotiations. But taken together, they reveal little more than a group of well-connected but hapless senior citizens proposing outlandish ideas, while lacking the levers to bring about change. Prins and his pen pals were frustrated that the Brexit deal May was negotiating would have left Britain closer to the EU than alternatives pushed by Euroskeptics, and were desperate to influence the process before it was too late. What is undoubtedly clear from reviewing the scores of leaked messages is that Prins and others in their network were indeed discussing ways to secretly discredit then-Prime Minister Theresa May at the height of the struggle over Brexit. In fact, the emails reveal no such thing. 10." The implication was that Johnson - Ukraine's closest ally since the invasion - had been installed as prime minister following a secret plot by the elderly Brexiteers. The website alleged that ex-MI6 chief Dearlove "together with his former colleagues and CIA cronies conducted successful intelligence operation against No. The leaks website, named "Sneaky Strawhead" in an apparent attempt to link the emails to Britain's blonde-haired prime minister, Boris Johnson, also claimed the messages contained sensational proof that "coup plotters" now ran the U.K. Such private details are now public property, thanks to hackers clearly seeking a grander target. As you'd expect, the emails are full of humdrum references to his home life - trips out with his grandson, a concert in rural Herefordshire, his exercise regime. Private emails he sent at the height of Britain's Brexit drama in 20 were first published in April 2022, a few weeks after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, on a tailor-made pop-up website. He has also peddled unsubstantiated claims that Putin could have Parkinson's disease. He has written articles for Net Zero Watch, a fringe campaign group that boasts the famously climate-skeptic former chancellor, Nigel Lawson, as a board member. Prins is an unusual figure in the academic world. The MI6 building at Vauxhall is the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) | Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images government and among hardline backbench Conservative MPs during the Brexit battles in the wake of the 2016 referendum, Prins was sure to have a colorful inbox. In the case of the Brexiteers, the outspoken Professor Prins appeared a good bet.Ī passionate pro-Brexit thinker, boasting contacts both inside the U.K. He added: “They are constantly adapting new techniques and channels to target journalists, politicians, government officials, academics and civil society actors with a variety of influence operations - including so-called ‘hack and leak’ operations.”Įxperts warn that state-linked hackers, or even freelancers who sell their illegally-obtained wares to higher powers, frequently stalk LinkedIn and other social networks with fake profiles to figure out who is talking privately to whom, before launching attacks on multiple targets within groups of friends or colleagues. ![]() Ross Burley, co-founder of the Centre for Information Resilience, explained: "Each day, the Kremlin and actors linked to it use disinformation, cyber attacks and propaganda to confuse and disrupt. "We’ve seen the Russian playbook enough times to know what it looks like - and this is it,” said one person caught up in the hacks. These claims were then noisily amplified across like-minded corners of the internet, damaging the reputations of all involved. Both hacks are now subject to intensive investigations by the British security services, POLITICO can reveal.Īnd both targets - though on opposite ends of the political spectrum - have one thing in common: Their personal emails swiftly appeared on fringe far-left websites, alongside forcefully-written narratives attacking the victims' motives but bearing questionable relation to the actual contents of the emails.
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