Whitehall seals Scottish election plot files
Ministers cite national security to withhold all files on an Israeli firm accused of targeting Swinney and the SNP, while Scotland released some.
The UK government has refused in full to say what it knew about an Israeli firm accused of targeting Scotland’s First Minister in this year’s Holyrood election, an episode voters are now calling the Israeli firm Scottish election scandal. The Cabinet Office cited national security. Scotland’s voters, whose democracy was allegedly the target, are still waiting to be told.
The Israeli firm at the centre of the row is BlackCore, a Tel Aviv-linked digital-influence operation named by French intelligence watchdog Viginum as running covert accounts against John Swinney, the SNP and the Scottish Government in the run-up to May’s Scottish election. When The National filed a freedom of information request asking what Whitehall knew and when, the Cabinet Office withheld every document, invoking Section 24 of the FOI Act and warning that release would risk “giving offence to other nations” and damage trust with “international partners”.
An Israeli firm, a Scottish election, and a question Whitehall won’t answer
Viginum’s account, first made public in June, is specific. Between 6 January and 8 May this year, it identified at least 256 accounts posting roughly 1,400 comments aimed at Scottish politics: 652 targeting Swinney personally, 338 the SNP, 112 the Scottish Government. Viginum’s head, Marc-Antoine Brillant, said the same operation reached beyond Scotland into France, New York, Angola and Togo. BlackCore’s online presence vanished within days of being named, and the firm has not answered a single media inquiry since.
Swinney was re-elected anyway. That fact does not make the operation less serious, but it does mean the argument for secrecy cannot be that disclosure would somehow undo the result. What it can do is tell Scottish voters whether their government was warned, and by whom.
On that question, the Scottish Government has been more forthcoming than its counterpart in London. Asked the same FOI question, it released partial correspondence, redacted but real. One email from John Webster, the First Minister’s principal private secretary, shows Swinney’s office scrambling to find out “what we/UKG and security apparatus know/knew” only after the story broke in the press, not before. Stephen Gethins, Scotland’s Europe minister, then asked for a formal letter to the UK defence secretary demanding answers. The substance of the reply was redacted too, but at least the request exists on paper.
The pattern that emerges is stark: Scottish ministers learned of an alleged attack on their own election from journalists, not from the UK’s security services, and the department that might explain that failure has now sealed its files completely. Gillian Mackay, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, put it plainly: “These allegations of meddling in elections from BlackCore represent a potentially extremely serious attack on Scotland’s democracy. It is also deeply concerning to see reports that the Scottish Government appears to have learned about them through the press, while the UK Government is refusing to disclose what it knew on grounds of national security and international relations. The public deserves to know whether warnings were missed before polling day, and what action has been taken since.”
What Whitehall isn’t saying
None of this proves the Israeli state directed BlackCore. Viginum itself says it could not identify who commissioned the operation, and the individuals investigators have named around the firm, businessman Guy Geyor, lawyer Doron Afik and former Israeli cyber chief Yigal Unna, all deny any knowledge of it. Israel’s embassy in Paris says it has “no intention to interfere” in foreign elections. Section 24 is also an ordinary tool, used routinely to withhold material on interference linked to Russia, China and Iran.
What makes this case different is the specific reason the Cabinet Office gave: not simply “national security” but the need to avoid offending a named ally and preserve trust with “international partners”. Westminster already knew the shape of this story well before the FOI fight. A House of Lords briefing in June, prepared for a debate on foreign interference moved by Lord Wallace of Saltaire, listed the BlackCore allegation alongside established state threats and noted that a March review had recommended banning foreign-funded political advertising. The government had the paperwork. It chose not to share it.
That choice now sits with Holyrood’s opposition parties, who are pushing for answers, and potentially with the Information Commissioner, who can be asked to review the Section 24 refusal. Viginum’s separate French findings, which named a codenamed operation against left candidates in Marseille, Toulouse and Roubaix, are reportedly already on the French prime minister’s desk. Until Whitehall opens its own files, Scottish voters will keep learning about threats to their democracy from newspapers in London and watchdogs in Paris, never from the government meant to protect them.
