Britain launches foreign interference review whilst deliberately ignoring its biggest test case
The appointment of a former Brexit civil servant to lead an inquiry that excludes Brexit reveals a bipartisan consensus on not knowing
Philip Rycroft wrote his doctoral thesis on church and community in eighteenth-century Yorkshire. It was solid historical scholarship. It taught him nothing about covert finance, national security, or the mechanics of foreign electoral interference. What it led to, eventually, was a distinguished civil service career culminating in the role he held from October 2017 to March 2019: Permanent Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union. His job was to make Brexit happen.
Now Rycroft has been appointed to lead Britain's urgent review into foreign interference in politics. The review was announced in December by Housing Secretary Steve Reed, prompted by the conviction of Nathan Gill—the former Reform UK leader in Wales sentenced to ten and a half years for taking Russian bribes whilst serving as a Member of the European Parliament. One detail in the terms of reference stands out: the review will not examine the Brexit referendum.
A man whose career peaked with delivering Brexit has been tasked with examining foreign interference whilst explicitly avoiding the event that made foreign interference a matter of national concern. This is not oversight. It is design.
What the review will and won't examine
The government says the review will assess "contemporary events and threats" and "recent cases." Political financing laws. Party governance rules. Safeguards against illicit money. It may produce restrictions on cryptocurrency donations, enhanced donor verification, tighter scrutiny of shell companies. These would be useful reforms.
What it will not do is establish whether Russia interfered in the referendum that transformed British politics, what methods were employed, which institutions failed, or what lessons should be drawn. The justification echoes Boris Johnson's government: no evidence that foreign interference had a "material impact" on any election or referendum.
This formulation conceals a circularity. The Intelligence and Security Committee's Russia Report, finally published in July 2020 after Johnson tried to suppress it, was blunt: Britain had "not seen or sought evidence of successful interference in UK democratic processes." The Committee found nothing—because, as former chair Dominic Grieve told the BBC, the government "actively avoided" looking. We found nothing because we didn't search. Therefore there is nothing to find.
The conviction that proves the vulnerability
Nathan Gill's crimes show what British vulnerability to Russian influence actually looks like. Between December 2018 and July 2019, he accepted roughly forty thousand pounds from Oleg Voloshyn, a former pro-Russian Ukrainian politician acting on behalf of Viktor Medvedchuk—described by the sentencing judge as a "close friend of Vladimir Putin." In exchange, Gill delivered scripted speeches in the European Parliament defending Russian-aligned media outlets, arranged parliamentary events promoting Kremlin narratives, and recruited other British MEPs to support pro-Russian positions. They had no idea he was being paid.
The WhatsApp messages between Gill and Voloshyn discussed "Christmas gifts" and "postcards" as cover for cash. The operation was neither subtle nor sophisticated. Gill was caught because border officials stopped him at Manchester Airport in September 2021 and seized his phone. The evidence had been sitting there for years, waiting.
Commander Dominic Murphy of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command stated after sentencing that the case "should send a clear message that any efforts by foreign powers to bribe people in the UK in elected and influential positions will not be tolerated." The actual message is rather different: interfere in our most consequential democratic decisions, and we will decline to look.
The international contrast
America, facing similar allegations about its 2016 election, launched the Mueller investigation. It ran twenty-two months, established that Russian interference occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion," and produced charges against thirty-four individuals and three companies including thirteen Russian nationals. The findings satisfied no one politically. But America asked the question and produced an answer.
Romania's Constitutional Court, in December 2024, annulled its presidential election after security services documented a Russian influence campaign conducted through TikTok. The far-right candidate Călin Georgescu had polled below one per cent weeks before voting. His sudden surge to victory, Romanian authorities concluded, had been orchestrated by foreign actors. The election was cancelled.
Moldova exposed a voter bribery scheme worth an estimated hundred million dollars, orchestrated by the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor on behalf of Russian interests. Moldovan authorities traced how Kremlin-controlled outlets coordinated messaging across 129 affiliated websites in more than fifty languages.
These are small countries with fewer resources than Britain. They asked the questions Britain will not ask.
The invitation to interference
The argument for not investigating is familiar. You cannot undo the Brexit referendum. Britain has moved on. Reopening old wounds would destabilise politics without achieving any remedy.
This reasoning misunderstands what investigation accomplishes. Research on criminal deterrence—conducted by scholars including Daniel Nagin at Carnegie Mellon and compiled by the National Institute of Justice—consistently demonstrates that certainty of detection matters far more than severity of punishment. When potential offenders observe crimes going uninvestigated, deterrent effects collapse. The Institute summarises decades of evidence: "the chance of being caught is a vastly more effective deterrent than even draconian punishment."
Applied to foreign interference, the implication is direct. By refusing to examine whether Russia interfered in Brexit, Britain signals to hostile actors that its most consequential democratic decisions are exempt from scrutiny. Gill's decade-long sentence shows severe punishment is possible when interference is detected. The refusal to investigate the referendum shows detection is optional.
This is not merely an accountability failure. In the language of deterrence theory, it is an invitation.
The argument for moving on
The case against investigation deserves engagement. Brexit happened nearly a decade ago. Britain has left the European Union, negotiated new arrangements, and is now governed by a party that opposed departure. Dwelling on 2016 serves those who wish to relitigate the outcome. A forward-looking review strengthening future protections is more useful than backward-looking recrimination.
There is something to this. An investigation that became a vehicle for reversing Brexit by other means would damage public trust more than it restored. The purpose of inquiry should not be to undo outcomes but to understand vulnerabilities.
Yet this argument proves too much. The same logic would preclude investigating any historical wrongdoing. Investigation serves three forward-looking functions: establishing facts for democratic legitimacy, identifying institutional failures so they can be corrected, and demonstrating to hostile actors that interference will be exposed. The Rycroft review, by design, can accomplish none of these for Britain's most significant democratic event of the past generation.
Protecting institutions, not democracy
The bipartisan consensus on avoidance demands explanation. This is not a Conservative position that Labour adopted for convenience. Both parties, in government, reached the same conclusion: the question should not be asked. Why?
The ISC Russia Report offers a clue. Detecting and preventing foreign interference was the responsibility of multiple institutions. MI5 should have warned. The police should have investigated. The Crown Prosecution Service should have prosecuted. Parliament should have legislated adequate protections. If interference occurred and went undetected, the failure was systemic.
A genuine investigation would expose not political embarrassment but institutional failure across security services, law enforcement, and regulatory bodies. These failures, if they occurred, would predate both the current government and its predecessor. They would implicate the permanent machinery of the British state.
This explains why the review's terms so carefully exclude historical examination. The government does not fear what investigation might reveal about politicians. It fears what investigation might reveal about institutions.
What the review will achieve
The Rycroft review will likely produce competent recommendations. Enhanced donor verification. Cryptocurrency restrictions. Tighter rules on shell companies. Better information sharing between the Electoral Commission and security services. If implemented, these would make British democracy somewhat more resilient.
What the review cannot achieve matters equally. It cannot establish whether Britain's most consequential democratic decision of the twenty-first century was influenced by foreign actors. It cannot identify which institutions failed. It cannot demonstrate to hostile states that interference will be detected and exposed. It cannot provide the public with reassurance—or disquieting truth.
The result is a peculiar form of wilful ignorance. Britain will strengthen its defences against future interference whilst refusing to know whether its most important recent exercise of democratic choice was compromised. The review is designed to produce forward-looking recommendations whilst avoiding backward-looking accountability. This may be politically convenient. It is not what defending democracy requires.
Nathan Gill was caught because someone seized his phone at an airport. The evidence was there, waiting. The question Britain refuses to ask is what else might be discovered if anyone cared to search.