Downing Street has effectively blocked the publication of a potentially explosive parliamentary report on the security threat that Russia poses to the UK until after the general election.
The 50-page document from the intelligence and security committee examines allegations that Kremlin-sponsored activity distorted the result of the 2016 EU referendum, but has to be cleared by No 10 before it can be released.
Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not approve publication before parliament was dissolved on Tuesday evening, meaning it cannot appear before the election on 12 December.
A No 10 spokesman declined to outline when the report would eventually be published. “There are processes reports such as this have to go through before publication, and the committee is well-informed of these,” he said.
The committee’s chairman, Dominic Grieve, said the decision to prevent publication before the election was “jaw-dropping” and that he could not understand on what basis it had been made.
“The protocols are quite clear. If the prime minister has a good reason for preventing publication he should explain to the committee what it is, and do it within 10 days of him receiving the report. If not, it should be published,” he said.
A final draft of the Russian dossier, the product of 18-months’ work, was sent to Downing Street on 17 October and was originally intended for publication early this week. Political approval had been expected by the end of last week.
It was intended to be the last step in what is conventionally a complex sign-off process. The report has already been cleared by Britain’s spy agencies, which contributed to the research.
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who authored a dossier about Donald Trump’s links to Moscow, also gave written evidence to the inquiry. His firm, Orbis, has documented Russian attempts to influence election outcomes in several European states and the 2016 US presidential election.
The committee’s report is understood to examine allegations that Russian money has flowed into British politics in general and the Conservative party in particular. It also features claims that Russia launched a major influence operation in 2016 in support of Brexit.
Fresh questions were also raised over the weekend by the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, about Dominic Cummings’ connections to Russia, and the levels of security vetting to which Johnson’s chief strategist has been subjected.
Thornberry intervened after an official-level whistleblower raised serious concerns, asking specifically if Cummings had been asked about the purpose of his three-year period of work in post-communist Russia between 1994 and 1997 and his relationship with members of the group Conservative Friends of Russia in the early part of this decade.
A No 10 source said reports such as that of the intelligence and security committee normally took about six weeks to be cleared for publication, and there was nothing unusual about the delay. Grieve, however, disputes that and has accused No 10 of lying about the publication timescale.
With the Commons tied up selecting a new Speaker, the Lords held a special debate about the withheld dossier, following an urgent question from the crossbench peer Lord Anderson, a national security expert. He insisted the delay was unjustified. “It invites, I’m afraid, suspicion of the government and its motives,” he said.
Earl Howe, responding for the government, told peers: “The length of time that the government had had for this report is not at all unusual. It was delivered on 17 October – that is not a very long time ago. And the prime minister is entitled to take his view on what the report contains.”
He was faced with sceptical questions from all sides of the chamber. The crossbencher Lord Butler, a former cabinet secretary, said the document had first been sent out for official clearance on 28 March. “The whole point of this report is that it is relevant to a general election coming up,” he added.
Opposition politicians have accused Johnson of presiding over a cover-up. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said over the weekend that the report should be published and asked what the government had to hide.
