'Russian Angle is a Way to Distract Public from Failures of UK Gov’t’ - Scholar

Over the weekend, leaked messages of a BBC correspondent came to light suggesting that the British broadcaster was looking for any leads that could connect Russia with the "Yellow Vests" protests in France.

George Szamuely of the Global Policy Institute and author of the "Bombs for Peace: NATO's Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia" told Sputnik that lots of money is being spent in the UK on "mobilizing public opinion against Russia".

Sputnik: What was your reaction when you learnt about the report that the BBC hunts for evil Russians in the French protest, I can imagine it wasn't such a great surprise?

George Szamuely: No, it was not a surprise at all, if I had been told the opposite then I might've been surprised. No, of course, that is exactly what the BBC does — it's the pressure that editors put on journalists and journalists put on stringers, which is to get the official story out, the official narrative out that it is the Russians who are behind everything that we don't like.

READ MORE: Russian Civic Chamber Urges OSCE to Assess BBC Journo's 'Yellow Vests' Research

That's exactly that I would expect the BBC to be doing, because that's the gist and thrust of most of the stories that the BBC does.

Sputnik: What do you make of the timing of Britain's search of a Russian trace in the protests now amid the British deadlock? From my point of view, being a British person living in Russia, I would've thought that the current malaise and these problems that the French government are having, a massive malaise now with the population in France, this would be something that they would be trying to highlight to the British electorate to say what a mess the European Union is, instead of focusing on this geopolitical strategy they have with Russia. What's your take on that?

George Szamuely: Well it makes a certain amount of sense that you try to persuade the public that the Russians are behind anything that's bad. Brexit is already a very controversial subject in Britain and so it's a sort of separate issue from Russia.

The Russian angle is more of a way to distract the public from the catastrophic failures of the British government with the whole Brexit negotiations, which have completely collapsed. So it's always nice to focus attention on the wickedness of the Russians, that at least takes the heat off the government.

In terms of what the British are doing, well just take a look at all the information that's now come out in recent weeks from the Integrity Initiative, this project of the Institute of Statecraft. We now know that a huge amount of money is pouring into mobilizing public opinion against Russia, and what's involved here, it's involved in getting journalists to write stories constantly exposing [the] nefarious, wicked doings of the Russians.

So there is a lot of money involved now, a lot of journalists are on the payroll, that's what the Integrity Initiative has revealed. That's just the British angle, because in the United States, in the last year of the Obama administration, an enormous amounts of taxpayer funds was allocated precisely into this project of mobilizing public opinion against Russia, supposedly searching for free media and against fake news from Russia is basically trying to create fake news of its own.

Sputnik: It is a relatively new story and obviously the focus is from the British perspective with these allegations of the effect that Russian trolls are having on the political landscape in France. I'm surprised I have not heard more stories from the French media. Have you heard any angles from the French media, or is it totally the British angle at the moment?

George Szamuely: It is mostly British, but it's been quite a lot in the United States, it's been played up quite extensively in the United States that the Russians are behind it all. I think probably because anti-Russian hysteria is little bit more intense in the United States then in Great Britain, but it's a close call. It's not as intense in France, so it hasn't really played that much of a role in France.

So I think there has been a little bit, I think some government officials have been peddling the Russian angle, but it's nowhere near. The French are just not as preoccupied in this stupid way as the British public has been, or at least the British media elite public has been on the Russian angle.

So I just don't think Macron attempting to bring in Russia just isn't very successful; it's not going to work in France.

Sputnik: What's your take on these latest revelations now in terms of damaging the BBC's image? Is it going to have any sort of indentation to the BBC's overall image? They're going through a bit of an indifferent period of time themselves with, obviously, this very divisive Brexit that is going on. You've either got pro-Europe or anti-Europe allegations. The BBC is obviously pro-remain, there's a lot of dissatisfaction among a good percentage of the British public; you're there in the UK, what can you add to that?

George Szamuely: Yes, the BBC now has such a low reputation, you're talking about a reputation that's been in a downward spiral for many years. I mean it's going back from the Iraq War onwards.

I don't know if this is going to damage the reputation of the BBC any more than it has already been damaged. I don't think anybody really now expects from the BBC some sort of objective, dispassionate, impeccable news reporting. People now think that the BBC is just a propaganda outlet. So I don't know if it will be much worse than we already have.

Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of George Szamuely and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

For more information listen to this edition of Weekend Special with George Szamuely.