Former British diplomat Ian Proud on X

The problem with the 'Russia caused Brexit' hoax, is that it isn't really about Russia, but about the tear-filled liberal regret that Brexit happened and the need to blame someone. Not the voters who, on the basis that many in Westminster consider most working class people to be childish, insufficiently educated and gullible, must have been misled. But the Russians, because Russia is the font of all ill. 

Let's be clear, what I am not saying is that Russian intelligence doesn't conduct hostile activity against British interests. They do. 

By the same toke, British intelligence conducts hostile activity against Russian interests.  

As Larry Johnson @LarrySonar21 put it eloquently when I chatted with his earlier, asking a foreign intelligence agency not to act against the interests of another state is a bit like asking your dog not to lick its balls. We even spy on each other during peace time and, while I am on the subject, we spy on our allies too.

Right now we are de facto at war with Russia so, boo hoo if they are doing naughty spying things, because we are too. Whinging about Russian spying is so unbelievably childish. Maybe if we sued for peace, we might each spy on each other a little less and do fewer hurty things.

But the idea that Russia put a big effort into affecting the Brexit vote doesn't really bear scrutiny.  

I was in Moscow during the Brexit vote and practically no one was interested in following what they considered to be UK domestic politics. Even the result of the Brexit referendum barely featured in the newspapers. I almost never got asked about Brexit. No one was interested.

As i said, no one at the Embassy was buzzing with speculation that the Russkies had been stirring the pot. It just never cropped up. The general view was that Corbyn had left the field of play meaning Labour never mobilised itself in a meaningful way. 

We have a tendency to believe that the whole world is desperately fascinated with and concerned by our decision to exit the European Union. They are not.

As it happens I was a reluctant remainer at the time of the Brexit vote in 2016. I used to joke that being a British diplomat in Moscow made me less reluctant (just to be clear, I had a very nice life with my family in Moscow). 

That comment was more about the feeling of community I experienced when flying back through Latvia and the idea of being part of a much larger community.

That feeling has now gone. 

The EU is no longer a community that allows nation states to be sovereign while maximising economic, social and cultural connections with minimal central intervention. 

If people who voted leave were worried about bureaucrats in Brussels telling us what to do in 2016, you want to take a look at the EU today. 

It has become and is becoming ever more centralised, wresting more sovereignty from its members and prioritising the political and military at the expense of making ordinary people poorer and less safe.

The idea that Britain's economic interests can best be served by rejoining a community suffering mass deindustrialisation, the highest energy costs in the developed world and uncontrolled migration is idiotic and dangerous.  

The suggestion that we can collectively feel safer by latching ourselves to unelected officials in Brussels who want to break Russia up into smaller constituent parts and take on China next, is frankly terrifying. 

If the Brexit vote happened again, I would vote to leave. Not because the Russians told me to.. I suspect that most people who voted leave in 2016 would do so again. 

If @andyburnham wants us to rejoin then the public should have a say. Blaming the Russians just makes him appear every bit as useless as Starmer, Sunak, Truss, Johnson, May.... jeez who's in charge of our frigging country</p>&mdash; Ian Proud (@proud_diplomat) <a href="https://x.com/proud_diplomat/status/2109762915217649688?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2026</a></blockquote>

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