Russian meddling probably didn’t affect the referendum result – but the Kremlin’s motives for wanting to undermine the EU still matter

Russian territorial aggression against Ukraine didn’t feature much in the Brexit referendum campaign. It made headlines briefly when Boris Johnson blamed Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea on the European Union.

According to the Vote Leave frontman, Vladimir Putin’s land grab was a consequence of Brussels making foreign policy “on the hoof” and having “pretensions to running a defence policy”.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/Reuters/EPA

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/Reuters/EPA

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/Reuters/EPA

Attendees at the party’s annual conference have been buoyed: both by leader Kemi Badenoch’s rising poll ratings and by a mock Bayeux Tapestry. But the challenge from Reform U.K. remains.

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Joshua Kerry, a 28-year-old British man accused of killing the former lawmaker Ann Widdecombe, was charged on Friday.

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