A House of Lords Library briefing published ahead of a debate on threats to UK democracy has drawn attention to an accusation by a French government agency that the Israeli firm BlackCore conducted digital interference operations ahead of the recent Scottish parliamentary elections, the briefing states.
The reference appears in an in-focus paper published on 18 June 2026, prepared for a debate scheduled in the upper chamber on 25 June.
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Wallace of Saltaire is due to move a motion taking note of threats to democratic institutions in the United Kingdom, including disinformation, foreign interference, and levels of public trust in politics. The Library briefing pulls together definitions, recent reports and government announcements relevant to those issues, and it is in that context that the BlackCore allegation surfaces as a flagged example of contemporary interference activity affecting the UK.
The briefing records that on 11 June 2026, VIGINUM, the French technical and operational service responsible for detecting and characterising foreign digital interference, accused BlackCore of having conducted digital interference operations ahead of the Scottish parliamentary elections. The Library notes that it remained unclear who had commissioned the activity. The decision to include the allegation in a parliamentary research product, rather than leave it confined to French agency reporting, places it more firmly into the UK political conversation ahead of debates on the government’s Representation of the People Bill.
The Library’s choice to cite the BlackCore allegation alongside material on Russian, Chinese and Iranian activity is notable in itself. The briefing’s broader discussion of foreign interference has historically focused on the three state actors identified in successive UK security documents, including the June 2025 strategic defence review and national security strategy. By raising activity attributed to a private Israeli firm in the same document, the Library briefing draws lawmakers’ attention to a wider spectrum of actors and commercial entities operating in the digital interference space, beyond the familiar list of hostile states.
VIGINUM itself receives extended treatment in the briefing as a possible model for the UK. The Library notes that France’s agency, established under the General Secretariat for Defence and National Security, has played a role in identifying and exposing a range of operations, including manipulations linked to Russia around the Paris Olympics. Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency is cited alongside it, with both presented as examples of dedicated national capabilities that the UK currently lacks in equivalent form.
That framing aligns with the recommendations of the Rycroft review into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK politics, which the government published on 25 March 2026 and which the Library briefing summarises in detail. Former permanent secretary Philip Rycroft concluded that dealing with hostile state online interference should be a far higher priority for government, with clear lead accountability at ministerial and senior official level and resources commensurate to the challenge. In his summary, Rycroft warned that the UK faced “a persistent problem of foreign interests seeking to exert influence on, and to interfere in, our politics,” with much of it “malign” and aimed at “sow distrust and exacerbate divisions in UK society, with the ultimate aim of undermining confidence in our democracy,” according to the review as reproduced in the briefing.
Rycroft also recommended banning foreign-funded online political adverts outright, ensuring that imprints disclose who has paid for them, and broadening enforcement powers held by the Electoral Commission. The government has committed to providing a line-by-line response to the review’s 17 recommendations ahead of the Commons report stage of the Representation of the People Bill, which has yet to be scheduled.
Alongside the foreign interference material, the briefing pulls together data on declining public trust in UK political institutions. Electoral Commission research from December 2024 found that only 14 per cent of respondents said they trusted politicians, a marginal increase on a previous figure of 10 per cent. The National Centre for Social Research reported in June 2025 that just 19 per cent of the British public thought the current system of governing Britain needed little or no improvement, while only 12 per cent trusted governments to put the country’s interest before their party’s interests just about always or most of the time.
The briefing also records recent warnings from senior intelligence figures. On 16 June 2026, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Moore, said the Russian state was trying to intimidate the UK through sabotage, arson and cyber-attacks. His comments followed the conviction of two men found guilty of conspiring to carry out arson attacks on property and a car connected to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who had been recruited online by a Russian-speaking individual reported to have likely been a Russian diplomat.
The National Protective Security Authority’s guidance to elected politicians, candidates, members of the House of Lords and staff working for democratic institutions lists disinformation operations alongside elicitation, cultivation, blackmail, online approaches, financial donations, cyber compromises and the exploitation of overseas travel as interference tools used by foreign states.
