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Iran and Russia’s campaign to get Corbyn into No 10

We look at how Russia and Iran are using social media to mess with our democracy, and we consider how the response to rising hate crime should be reinforcing a collective British identity

October 25, 2018 10:52
Seeking to destabilise the UK: Khamenei (left) and Putin (Photo: Getty Images)

ByDaniel Sugarman, BY daniel sugarman

3 min read

Twitter has published an archive of over 10 million posts originating from just a few thousand anonymous Russian and Iranian accounts, which included attempts to promote Jeremy Corbyn to UK audiences by disparaging British Jews’ fears about antisemitism.

Over a five-year period, more than nine million tweets were linked back to “3,841 accounts believed to be connected to the Russian Internet Research Agency”, according to Twitter, while over a million tweets were traced to “770 accounts believed to originate in Iran”.

Messages from Iranian accounts such as the now-defunct “VoiceofQuds” included tweets such as “Jeremy Corbyn poses a threat but NOT to Britain’s #Jews rather, what he stands for is a direct threat to #IsraelLobby ideological & economic interests #JeremyCorbyn4PM #GroupPalestine.”

Support for Mr Corbyn also came through tweets or retweets such as “Zionist Inquisition in Full Cry Their quarry: anti-racist Labour leader #JeremyCorbyn. Their weapons: antisemitism smears. Their purpose: to oust Corbyn and replace him with a compliant pro-Israel stooge.”