Jeremy Corbyn under fire over alleged Russian links to leaked NHS documents

Labour leader’s claim to have proof of a US ‘plot’ to privatise the NHS blows up in his face.

Jeremy Corbyn has refused to reveal the source of documents he claims are proof Britain’s National Health Service would be up for grabs in a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, after social media site Reddit announced they originated from Russia.

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

With just a few days remaining until Thursday’s December 12 general election, Tory support has stalled. The Conservatives are six points ahead of Labour, according to market research company Savanata ComRes, which conducted the poll for the businesswomen Gina Miller’s Remain United. The polling company says Labour has surged four per cent while the Tories remain static, however the poll measured voter intention overall, not broken down by constituencies.

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According to the survey, the Conservatives had 42 per cent support, Labour 36 per cent, Lib Dems 11 per cent, Brexit Party four per cent and the Greens two per cent.

The state of the NHS has been the key election issue for Labour voters, surpassing even the Brexit question. Mr Corbyn last week used the apparently leaked documents to warn the United States wanted “total market access”, including to the NHS, under a “toxic” post-Brexit trade deal with the UK.

“That could lead to runaway privatisation of our health service,” he said in a campaign speech.

“This is not only a plot against our NHS, it’s a plot against our whole country.”

But social media site Reddit, where the documents were posted in late October, claims they were released as part of a disinformation campaign originating in Russia.

Reddit claims it has banned 61 suspicious accounts forming part of the campaign, active since June, and that the health documents were linked to one of those accounts.

Reddit claims one of the accounts posted the NHS documents in late October. The Conservative government said the documents were readouts of meetings of a UK-US trade and investment working group.

Mr Corbyn has repeatedly insisted that the NHS would not be up for sale under a Labour government, despite the Tories denying any plans to do so and US president Donald Trump saying he had no interest in the NHS, even if it was presented to him on a silver platter.

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

Mr Corbyn has denied scaremongering over the NHS.

“We obtained those documents,” Mr Corbyn said on Saturday while campaigning in Wales. “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.”

But prime minister Boris Johnson, who was at a football match near Stockport, 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 in a statement it was made aware of a Reddit post which comprised leaked documents from the UK. “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.

On Friday, Mr Johnson repeatedly mocked Mr Corbyn’s “mystery” Brexit deal in a final TV debate that instant polling suggested had failed to hand Labour a breakthrough.

Elsewhere on the campaign trail, the Tories have begun an investigation into three of their candidates who are accused of anti-Semitic behaviour.