Corbyn snared by Russian trolls

Jeremy Corbyn refuses to ­reveal National Health Service document’s source despite Reddit announcing it was Russia.

British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on the campiagn trail in Swansea, south Wales. Picture: AFP

Jeremy Corbyn has refused to ­reveal the source of National Health Service documents after social site Reddit announced they originated in Russia.

Reddit said it had banned 61 ­accounts it believed formed a disinformation campaign originating from June and that the health ­documents were linked to one of those accounts.

The drama surrounding the NHS papers exploded at the weekend, just as a new poll showed the Conservative Party may be squeezed by a rise in Labour ­support.

This is because of support for the Liberal Democrats continuing to fall, while the Brexit Party’s impact on the Tory vote has already been factored in.

With just a few days left until Thursday’s general election, the Tory support has stalled and is six points ahead of Labour, according to Savanata Com Res, which conducted the poll for businesswomen Gina Miller’s Remain United lobby group.

The polling company said ­Labour had surged 4 per cent while the Torys remained static, but they asked voter intention overall, not broken down by constituencies.

The Conservatives had 42 per cent support, Labour 36 per cent, the Lib Dems 11 per cent, Brexit Party 4 per cent and Greens 2 per cent.

The Sunday Times reported on a poll by Datapraxis based on 500,000 online interviews predicted that Prime Minister Boris Johnson would win a majority of 38 in parliament, down from a projection of 48 two weeks ago.

“We have never seen as many undecided voters this late in the campaign,” Datapraxis chief Paul Hilder said. “As many as 80-90 constituencies are still up for grabs.

“A much larger Conservative landslide is still possible — but so is a hung parliament.”

Best for Britain, a group that wants a second referendum to stop Brexit, said a poll it commissioned showed Mr Johnson was on course to win a majority of 40.

“This election is on a knife-edge,” the group’s chief executive, Naomi Smith, said.

“If enough remainers hold their nose and vote for the candidate with the best chance of stopping the Tories in their seat, we’re heading for a hung parliament and a final-say referendum.”

The state of the NHS has been the key election issue for Labour voters, surpassing even the Brexit question, and Mr Corbyn has ­repeatedly insisted that the NHS was not for sale under a Labour government.

The Tories have said they had no plans to do this, and US President Donald Trump said last week he wasn’t interested in the NHS, even if presented to him on a silver platter.

Reddit said one of the suspicious NHS accounts posted the documents in late October. The government said the documents were readouts of meetings of a British-US trade and investment working group. Mr Corbyn said the documents showed the US wanted total market access, ­including to the NHS.

Questions about the source of the documents has put pressure on Mr Corbyn, but he has refused to say where the documents came from. He also said it was nonsense that Labour benefited from ­Russian trolls.

“We obtained those documents,” Mr Corbyn said while campaigning in Wales on Saturday. “We believed those documents to be correct and nobody until yesterday denied the correctness of those documents.

“The issue is there should be no interference in British politics by anybody else.

“The Prime Minister has answers to give, which he refuses to do, about Russian donations to the Tory party or the report that he is sitting on about Russian interference in British politics.

“Of course there should be no interference in our British political system by Donald Trump or the Russians.”

Mr Johnson told Sky News “Well I do think we need to get to the bottom of that. As far as I’m aware, we haven’t yet established the truth about that.

“But what I certainly think is that document, whatever it was ­intended to prove, did not prove what Jeremy Corbyn and the ­Labour Party hoped that it would prove.”

Reddit said it was made aware of a Reddit post that comprised leaked documents from Britain.

“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,” the company said in a statement.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: REUTERS