UK Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry has lashed out at the country's Institute for Statecraft think tank for "routinely using its Twitter feed to disseminate personal attacks and smears" against the Labour Party.
She was echoed by Shadow Justice Minister Richard Burgon who also pointed the finger at the think tank, which had allegedly received £2.25 million ($2.8 million) in Foreign Office funds.
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"This isn't about Russia. This isn't about anything other than our concern that the Conservative government in this country shouldn't be using public funds or the state to undermine or attack the official opposition", Burgon pointed out.
He called for a full-fledged and independent investigation into the matter, stressing that "we can't have a Conservative Party, establishment cover up" and that "we need to know the full facts".
Burgon's remarks came after the Foreign Office claimed that the Institute for Statecraft had been hacked several weeks ago, in what he described as an alleged example of "Russian disinformation intended to confuse audiences and discredit an organisation, which is working independently to tackle the threat of disinformation".
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Institute for Statecraft Senior Fellow Stephen Dalziel has confirmed that the think tank was indeed hacked by unknown individuals three weeks ago. He suggested that the attack could have come from Russia but added that "we have no solid evidence at the moment".
Late last week, Scotland's Sunday Mail newspaper published a story that the Institute for Statecraft-run Integrity Initiative retweeted an article in the Times in February in which Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn was described as the Kremlin's "useful idiot".
Earlier, International hacktivist group Anonymous leaked a batch of documents on the activities of the Integrity Initiative project that was ostensibly founded to counter disinformation and defend democratic processes from malign influence.
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Other documents suggested that "the British government goes far beyond this and exploits the Integrity Initiative to solve its domestic problems inside the United Kingdom by defaming the opposition".
Commenting on the issue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that the Integrity Initiative's only task seemed to be to "denigrate Russia in the public eye in foreign countries".
