Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK's opposition Labour Party, has argued that the leaks show Prime Minister Boris Johnson has discussed the UK's National Health Service with the US government. It's unclear how the documents were originally leaked, but they were first posted to Reddit in October.
A Labour spokesperson said: "These documents reveal the plot against our NHS. And of course neither the UK nor the US government have denied their authenticity. Our releasing them to journalists was clearly in the public interest."
The accounts that originally shared and promoted the agreement mimicked the behavior, account names and obscure hosting sites of a Russian operation on Facebook that the company took down earlier this year. Researchers at the Atlantic Council, given those accounts' details and histories, dubbed the operation "Secondary Infektion" after its resemblance to a Soviet-era propaganda campaign, and determined it was likely the work of Russian intelligence.
"Attribution is always the hardest part of any investigation into information operations. Reddit's statement strengthens the link between the trade leaks and the earlier Russian operation," Ben Nimmo, who led that research, told CNN.
Reddit, like all major tech companies that periodically remove content that appears to be part of coordinated information campaigns, declined to share more specific details about how it identifies those operations.
Russian state-linked hackers are widely believed to have released genuine documents to influence several high-profile Western elections in recent years, including emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016 and French president Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
The Russian government consistently denies claims of state interference in foreign election processes.
In its announcement, Reddit said it was banning one forum, called a subreddit, and 61 accounts it found sharing the leaks, but that it would temporarily make them accessible for the public for research purposes.
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed Friday night in the last head-to-head debate before a general election in six days — an underpowered showdown that saw both men stick to well-worn phrases and promises about their plans for Brexit and Britain’s future.
Johnson, a Conservative who supports Britain’s exit from the European Union, tried to portray Corbyn as a waffler with no firm Brexit stance who would plunge the United Kingdom into more uncertainty. Corbyn reminded viewers about the Conservative government’s spending cuts, and claimed Johnson was bent on striking a trade deal with the United States that might harm Britain’s interests.
Each questioned the other’s character. Johnson accused Corbyn of a “failure of leadership” for failing to stamp out anti-Semitism in his party. Corbyn retorted that “a failure of leadership is when you use racist remarks,” as Johnson has done with glibly offensive language. In a magazine article last year he called Muslim women who wear face-covering veils “letter boxes.”
BBC moderator Nick Robinson suggested voters faced an “impossible choice” between two unpopular and untrustworthy leaders. That impression was reinforced Friday when two former prime ministers criticized their own party’s contenders. Former Conservative premier John Major called Brexit the "worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime," while ex-Labour leader Tony Blair urged voters to make the best of a “horrible” choice.”
Opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, left, and Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during a head to head live Election Debate at the BBC TV studios in Maidstone, England, Friday Dec. 6, 2019. (Associated Press)
Opinion polls put Johnson’s Conservatives ahead of the Labour opposition before the election next Thursday, in which all 650 House of Commons seats are up for grabs.
The Conservatives had a minority government before the election, and Johnson pushed for the Dec. 12 vote, which is taking place more than two years early, in hopes of winning a majority and breaking Britain's political impasse over Brexit. He says that if the Conservatives win a majority, he will get Parliament to ratify his Brexit divorce deal and take the U.K. out of the EU by the current Jan. 31 deadline.
In the debate, Johnson contrasted that promise with Corbyn’s refusal to say whether he favored leaving the bloc or remaining. Labour has promised to negotiate a new Brexit deal, then give voters a choice between leaving on those terms and remaining in the bloc. Corbyn says he would be neutral in that referendum.
“You cannot end the uncertainty on Brexit if you do not know what the deal is that you want to do,” Johnson said. “You cannot negotiate a deal if you are neutral on it.”
“You cannot end the uncertainty on Brexit if you do not know what the deal is that you want to do. You cannot negotiate a deal if you are neutral on it.”
— Boris Johnson, British prime minister
Johnson's opponents say his promise to “get Brexit done” rings hollow, because leaving the bloc will be the prelude to months or years of complex trade negotiations.
Corbyn claimed that under a Johnson government, Britain would “walk out of the EU into a relationship with nobody” and spend years trying to strike a new trade deal with the United States. He said that would bring “seven years of complete uncertainty and continued job losses in manufacturing and industry.”
The two men also tussled over security in the wake of last week’s deadly attack in London by a knife-wielding man who had served a prison sentence for terrorist crimes. Johnson tried to portray Corbyn — a longtime anti-war and anti-nuclear campaigner — as soft on security. Corbyn highlighted cuts to police and prison services under the Conservatives.
Johnson’s party is promising to increase public spending if it wins the election, and Corbyn tackled Johnson on inflated promises, such as a claim his government will build 40 news hospitals. In fact that number includes many existing facilities that will be renovated.
Labour also took aim Friday at Johnson’s insistence that there will be no new checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. after Brexit. The divorce deal Johnson has negotiated with the bloc agrees to keep Northern Ireland aligned to EU customs rules and some goods standards to avoid checks along the currently invisible border with EU member Ireland.
Trade experts say that means some checks will have to be conducted on goods moving across the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Labour said it had obtained a leaked Treasury document that says “there will be customs declarations and security checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain,” and Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay has previously said there will have to be some checks.
Corbyn said the document “drives a coach and horses through Boris Johnson's claim that there will be no border in the Irish Sea."
But Johnson claimed it was “nonsense” to suggest there would be any new checks. The Conservative Party said the leaked document was an "immediate assessment” rather than a detailed analysis.
Labour has a radical domestic agenda, promising to nationalize key industries and utilities, hike the minimum wage and give free internet access to all.
The party has struggled to persuade voters that its lavish spending promises are deliverable without big tax hikes. Labour's campaign also has been dogged by allegations that Corbyn — a long-time champion of the Palestinians — has allowed anti-Jewish prejudice to fester in the left-of-center party.
Corbyn has called anti-Semitism "a poison and an evil in our society" and says he is working to root it out of the party.
This election is especially unpredictable because the question of Brexit cuts across traditional party loyalties. For many voters, their identities as "leavers" or "remainers" are more important than party affiliations.
The Conservative lead suggests the party has managed to win over many Brexit-backing voters, while Labour faces competition for pro-EU electors from the centrist Liberal Democrats and several smaller parties.
But the Conservatives have also lost support from some pro-EU voters by taking a strongly pro-Brexit stance. Several ex-Conservative lawmakers who were expelled for rebelling over Brexit are running against their old party as independents.
The independent former Tories were endorsed Friday by former Conservative Prime Minister John Major, who called Brexit the "worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime."
"It will make our country poorer and weaker,” he said. “It will hurt most those who have least.”
In another blow to Johnson's claims that Britain will be better off outside the EU, Britain’s Brexit envoy in Washington quitthis week, saying she no longer wants to “peddle half-truths on behalf of a government I do not trust."
Alexandra Hall Hall resigned as the embassy’s Brexit counselor with a letter slamming the British government’s use of “misleading” arguments and reluctance “to address honestly” the challenges and trade-offs involved in leaving the EU.
Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this report.
Leaked documents detailing UK-US trade talks were posted on Reddit by an account linked to a campaign "originating from Russia", the online message board has said.
In a post on Friday, the site said it had suspended 61 accounts that were part of a co-ordinated effort.
The papers had their first wide burst of public attention when unveiled in the election campaign by Jeremy Corbyn.
The government said it was "looking into the matter".
Mr Corbyn claimed they show the NHS is "for sale" and Labour says their release was in the public interest.
The Conservative Party, which denies the NHS would be on the table during trade talks with the US, declined to comment on Reddit's announcement.
Reddit's post did not provide any further details about the evidence behind its conclusions.
But it said a group of suspect accounts "provides us with important attribution for the recent posting of the leaked UK documents, as well as insights into how adversaries are adapting their tactics".
The Labour leader, who first highlighted them at a press conference on 27 November, contends they pave the way to higher drug costs and the privatisation of the National Health Service, while the prime minister insists that is not true.
Culture secretary Nicky Morgan said it was "extremely serious" that the leaked documents could be linked to a Russian disinformation campaign.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme she said: "I understand from what was being put on that website, those who seem to know about these things say that it seems to have all the hallmarks of some form of interference.
"And if that is the case, that obviously is extremely serious. And actually as culture secretary, obviously one of the things that we are looking for and monitoring is any interference in our elections."
Govt spokesperson: “The UK government was already looking into the matter, with support from the National Cyber Security Centre...We do not comment on leaks.” Labour points out US/UK have not denied authenticity of document and says releasing them was in the public interest
The documents themselves were posted on Reddit more than a month prior to Mr Corbyn's announcement, prompting questions about how they got there - and why few people seemed to notice them before.
The original Reddit post containing the trade talks documents came from an account with the user name "gregoratior".
In its post, Reddit said: "We investigated this account and the accounts connected to it, and today we believe this was part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia."
"Suspect accounts on Reddit were recently reported to us, along with indicators from law enforcement, and we were able to confirm that they did indeed show a pattern of coordination," the post continued.
The company also said the suspended accounts participated in vote manipulation - Reddit uses a "karma" points system to highlight popular posts - but that "none of these accounts or posts received much attention on the platform."
Trying to get attention
Following the original Reddit post, further attempts were made to get attention for the documents - via a Twitter account, the fringe message board 4chan, websites in Germany and Austria, and an American conspiracy site.
On Monday, researchers at Oxford and Cardiff universities, the Atlantic Council think tank and social media analysis firm Graphika said that the way the documents were posted and spread online closely resembled a Russian campaign uncovered earlier in the year. Researchers dubbed that earlier campaign "Secondary Infektion" after a Soviet-era disinformation plot.
The researchers who uncovered the earlier network pointed out that "gregoratior" used the same unusual combination of websites to spread the leaked documents. At several points, the account's posts seemed to be written by a non-native speaker of English.
Similarly, the BBC determined that a post made by one of the accounts in German does not appear to be the writing of a native German speaker.
Debate confrontation
During a previous leader debate on 19 November, Mr Corbyn produced heavily-redacted versions of the documents, and announced that they were the result of a Freedom of Information request.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
That request was originally lodged by campaign group Global Justice Now. A spokesperson told the BBC that after the debate, the organisation was contacted via email and alerted to the presence of the uncensored documents on Reddit.
Labour's response
The BBC attempted to contact "gregoratior" via Reddit and email, but we have not received a reply.
A Reddit spokesperson said Friday: "The integrity of our site continues to be of great importance, and we will continue to be transparent with our community and the public on these issues."
However the company did not release any specific details about the evidence it obtained from law enforcement or its own investigation.
The Labour Party has not commented on how they obtained or became aware of the documents.
A party spokesperson said: "These documents reveal the plot against our NHS. And of course neither the UK nor the US government have denied their authenticity. Our releasing them to journalists was clearly in the public interest."
Is there something we should be investigating? Email us
Leaked documents detailing UK-US trade talks were posted on Reddit by an account linked to a campaign "originating from Russia", the online message board has said.
In a post on Friday, the site said it had suspended 61 accounts that were part of a co-ordinated effort.
The papers had their first wide burst of public attention when unveiled in the election campaign by Jeremy Corbyn.
The government said it was "looking into the matter".
Mr Corbyn claimed they show the NHS is "for sale" and Labour says their release was in the public interest.
The Conservative Party, which denies the NHS would be on the table during trade talks with the US, declined to comment on Reddit's announcement.
Reddit's post did not provide any further details about the evidence behind its conclusions.
But it said a group of suspect accounts "provides us with important attribution for the recent posting of the leaked UK documents, as well as insights into how adversaries are adapting their tactics".
The Labour leader, who first highlighted them at a press conference on 27 November, contends they pave the way to higher drug costs and the privatisation of the National Health Service, while the prime minister insists that is not true.
The documents themselves were posted on Reddit more than a month prior to Mr Corbyn's announcement, prompting questions about how they got there - and why few people seemed to notice them before.
The original Reddit post containing the trade talks documents came from an account with the user name "gregoratior".
In its post, Reddit said: "We investigated this account and the accounts connected to it, and today we believe this was part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia."
"Suspect accounts on Reddit were recently reported to us, along with indicators from law enforcement, and we were able to confirm that they did indeed show a pattern of coordination," the post continued.
The company also said the suspended accounts participated in vote manipulation - Reddit uses a "karma" points system to highlight popular posts - but that "none of these accounts or posts received much attention on the platform."
Trying to get attention
Following the original Reddit post, further attempts were made to get attention for the documents - via a Twitter account, the fringe message board 4chan, websites in Germany and Austria, and an American conspiracy site.
On Monday, researchers at Oxford and Cardiff universities, the Atlantic Council think tank and social media analysis firm Graphika said that the way the documents were posted and spread online closely resembled a Russian campaign uncovered earlier in the year. Researchers dubbed that earlier campaign "Secondary Infektion" after a Soviet-era disinformation plot.
The researchers who uncovered the earlier network pointed out that "gregoratior" used the same unusual combination of websites to spread the leaked documents. At several points, the account's posts seemed to be written by a non-native speaker of English.
Similarly, the BBC determined that a post made by one of the accounts in German does not appear to be the writing of a native German speaker.
Debate confrontation
During a previous leader debate on 19 November, Mr Corbyn produced heavily-redacted versions of the documents, and announced that they were the result of a Freedom of Information request.
Media playback is unsupported on your device
That request was originally lodged by campaign group Global Justice Now. A spokesperson told the BBC that after the debate, the organisation was contacted via email and alerted to the presence of the uncensored documents on Reddit.
Labour's response
The BBC attempted to contact "gregoratior" via Reddit and email, but we have not received a reply.
A Reddit spokesperson said Friday: "The integrity of our site continues to be of great importance, and we will continue to be transparent with our community and the public on these issues."
However the company did not release any specific details about the evidence it obtained from law enforcement or its own investigation.
The Labour Party has not commented on how they obtained or became aware of the documents.
A party spokesperson said: "These documents reveal the plot against our NHS. And of course neither the UK nor the US government have denied their authenticity. Our releasing them to journalists was clearly in the public interest."
Is there something we should be investigating? Email us
Speaking at a campaign rally, Johnson said: "I'm in favour of having people of talent come to this country but I think we should have it democratically controlled."
However, subtitles on a video of the speech posted to Channel 4's official Twitter account read "people of colour" instead of "people of talent."
The broadcaster subsequently deleted the tweet and apologized.
"Boris Johnson says 'people of talent' not 'people of colour.' Our earlier tweet was a mistake. We misheard and we apologise," the news channel said on Twitter.
However, the storm sparked by the original tweet was enough to push "people of colour" into the UK's top Twitter trends on Friday.
LONDON — Antoinette Simmons has lived in the United States for the last 10 years, after having lived in England for a decade. Guess which country’s health care system she prefers?
In the U.K., the National Health Service diagnosed and treated her husband’s cancer free of charge. After moving to Atlanta in 2009, Simmons says she was hit with an unexpected bill of $28,000 after having surgery and misreading the fine print in her insurance policy.
"It was a very dark time," she said, "because I just felt that the walls were closing in."
Simmons, 57, a public defender who was born in Jamaica, has a warning for those who are using the future of the NHS — specifically its ability to negotiate drug prices after Brexit — as a campaign issue in the national elections on Dec. 12.
"People should run screaming away from anything that involves the pharmaceutical vampires in the United States getting anywhere near the NHS," she said.
Antoinette Simmons.
Built out of the chaos of World War II, the NHS is now the world's fifth-largest employer, and because of it, no U.K. citizen need face bankruptcy because of medical care, or have to choose between seeing a doctor and keeping the lights on.
But this year, the opposition Labour Party is raising concerns that another Conservative government could "sell off" the NHS to the United States.
"After Brexit, if we have a Conservative government they will be very desperate to have a trade deal with the U.S.," said Sonia Adesara, a doctor who is campaigning on behalf of the Labour Party. "And I think it's very clear the U.S. wants access to our NHS."
"Access," in this sense, refers to the administration’s desire for American pharmaceutical companies to be allowed to fully participate in the U.K. health care market, according to trade objectives published in February.
The NHS budget was $170 billion this year, much of it used to help negotiate low drug prices, scoring bargains Americans can only dream of.
So potentially there is a lot of money to be made in any trade deal between London and Washington after the U.K. leaves the European Union.
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The Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust building at Trafford General Hospital in Manchester, previously known as Park Hospital, where the NHS was launched by the then health secretary Aneurin Bevan.Peter Byrne / PA Images via Getty Images file
Labour, which founded the NHS in 1948, frames the choice facing voters this way: Will the U.K. preserve the service as a pillar of postwar society, providing free health care in a system that's rated as the best in the developed world?
Or will the U.K. allow increased influence from the United States, whose far more expensive free-market-oriented model is ranked worst in the world, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan research organization.
Last week, Labour released a trove of government documents covering talks between the U.S. and the U.K. that it says are "proof" the NHS would be on the block if the ruling Conservative Party wins the election and negotiates a post-Brexit trade agreement with the U.S.
Despite the documents, the Conservatives still repeatedly insist that the NHS would not be part of any post-Brexit trade deal with Washington.
"There are no circumstances in which this government or any Conservative government will put the NHS on the table in any trade negotiation," Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a televised debate with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. "Our NHS will never be for sale."
Opponents point to the prime minister's career and private life, which have been riddled with allegations of lying, as reasons to be skeptical. Most recently the U.K.’s Supreme Court ruled he misled Queen Elizabeth II before suspending Parliament so it could not scrutinize his Brexit plans.
As many as 45 percent of respondents in a poll by Survation in November said they do not trust the prime minister with the NHS.
It's not just Labour and other opposition parties who warn of Johnson’s untrustworthiness.
Nick Boles, a former Conservative lawmaker and chief of staff when Johnson was mayor of London, wrote in The London Evening Standard that the prime minister "will betray the NHS in a heartbeat if that is what it takes to get a trade deal out of his role model — Donald Trump."
The sheer unpopularity of Trump in the U.K. has made the specter of NHS interference a potent attack line for Labour, which has been languishing in the polls under the weight of a vicious dispute over allegations of anti-Semitism in the party and its divisive stance on Brexit.
On Sunday, Corbyn leaned into this unpopularity by calling Johnson the "world's leading sycophant" with regard to Trump.
The president and his ambassador in London, Woody Johnson, said this summer that the NHS would be "on the table" in any post-Brexit trade deal, although both later backtracked.
Trump has also vowed to go after what he calls "freeloading" countries — or those that don’t pay the full share of medical research and development. It aligns with what the powerful pharmaceutical lobby has advocated for years.
To our friends in the UK: please cherish, protect, & continue investing in your healthcare system!
Once Big Pharma & special interests get their hands on it, it could take generations to regain.
Millions of people in the US are fighting to have a system half as good as the NHS. https://t.co/gPR2oq7ZSw
If the Conservatives win a majority this month, as polls suggest they might, the U.S. could be in a position to strong arm the British government over the NHS.
Robert Lawrence, a trade expert who served on President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, suggested that the U.K. could try to set firm ground rules with the Americans during trade talks, which can't start officially until after Brexit, now slated for Jan. 31.
"It could be made clear to the United States that the NHS is just a nonstarter," he said. "Then it comes back to a question of power: Do you have sufficient leverage to swallow that hot potato? It just it depends on what else you’re prepared to give up."
Giving way on drug prices could put a huge strain on Britain.
Paying the free-market U.S. price would increase the NHS pharmaceutical budget to $58 billion from $23 billion per year, according to University of Liverpool research conducted for U.K. broadcaster Channel 4.
The NHS is the world's fifth largest employer, behind the Department of Defense, the Chinese army, Walmart and McDonald's.Peter Dazeley / Getty Images file
That would put a colossal strain on the NHS's already overburdened finances after a decade of austerity. However, few are suggesting that the NHS would stop being free at the point of access.
Supporters point out that, for all of its faults, the NHS still outshines the U.S. medical system by most measures. That's despite the U.S. spending more on health care, publicly and privately, than any other country.
"The NHS provides world-class treatment as soon as you walk through that door," Adesara, the doctor and Labour activist, said. “I think that's a pretty amazing thing — that everyone gets this amazing care no matter who you are and how much money you have."
LONDON — During previous elections in the United Kingdom, political parties have actively courted the endorsement of the president of the United States.
But Donald Trump, in town for a NATO meeting on Tuesday, is so unpopular in the U.K. that his traditional enemies are hoping he will say something — anything — to denigrate them or the causes they support.
The president's visit comes ahead of a pivotal nationwide election on Dec. 12 that could shape the U.K.'s Brexit path for decades to come.
"Obviously he is very unpopular with British people, and I don't think he does Boris Johnson any favors," said Matt Zarb-Cousin, a former spokesman for opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is seeking to unseat Johnson as prime minister.
"I don't think Trump is proficient enough not to land Boris Johnson in it by accidentally saying something" damaging about the National Health Service, Zarb-Cousin added, referring to Britain's publicly funded health care system, which has become a central issue in the campaign.
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Meanwhile, just 19 percent of Brits have a positive opinion of Trump, according to the pollster YouGov. More than two thirds say they have no confidence in him to do the right thing, a study by the Pew Research Center found last year.
Johnson's aides have denied the suggestion that he fears any association with Trump would hurt his campaign. Polls show his Conservative Party is in the lead, but the gap with Labour has narrowed in recent days.
So it may not be a surprise that Trump cut a more neutral tone this time.
"It's going to be a very important election for this great country," the president told reporters alongside Jens Stoltenberg, NATO's secretary general, on Tuesday. "But I have no thoughts on it."
Later he added, "I stay out of it — I think Boris is very capable and will do a good job."
Some hope that Trump will yield something that can be weaponized for the election.
"This guy is verbally incontinent," journalist and left-wing activist Paul Mason said on BBC television. "There's many hours yet to go. And remember he's jet-lagged so there's plenty of time when he's going to be awake, watching Fox News and reacting to what's happening in the world."
Today marks a stark contrast to 2009, for example, when then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown tried five times before successfully securing a meeting with President Barack Obama.
Back then, Brown was the centrist leader of Labour. Corbyn is a veteran socialist campaigner who casts himself as Trump's antithesis.
Dec. 4, 201904:19
Central to his anti-Trump stance is the NHS, which is publicly funded and provides free care for everyone at the point of use.
This summer Trump said that the NHS would be "on the table" in any post-Brexit trade deal, albeit rowing this back after widespread outrage in Britain.
On Tuesday, Trump doubled down on this denial, saying he wouldn't meddle with the NHS even if it was handed to him "on a silver platter." He said he didn't know where the "rumor" about the NHS being involved in the trade deal came from.
Asked why he was holding back on commenting on the election, Trump appeared to acknowledge his widespread unpopularity across Europe.
"I'm representing the U.S. So they may not like me because I’m representing us, and I represent us strong," he said. He also claimed he "knows nothing" about Corbyn, a departure from comments in October when he said the Labour leader "would be so bad for your country, he'd be so bad, he'd take you on such a bad way. He'd take you into such bad places."
Alexander Smith
Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.
