Burnham tells security chiefs to build a centre that attributes hostile state disinformation
The National Centre for Information Defence has a name, the Cabinet Office leading the initial work, and an offer to share British methods with European governments before their elections. Burnham gave few details of its shape.
The Watch · Security desk
What happened
- Burnham told the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday that he has ordered security chiefs to begin work on a new national centre to detect, attribute and disrupt hostile state disinformation.
- The Cabinet Office is understood to be leading the initial work, with intelligence agencies, other departments, law enforcement and social media companies helping determine how the centre would operate.
- Burnham accused Russian agencies of running bots and fake websites, falsifying newspaper articles and copying the branding of 28 British organizations, among them universities and the BBC.
- He put Kremlin spending on manipulating information at around £1.3 billion each year.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint Anything the centre publishes still has to clear the same foreign-orchestration threshold that has kept the 2023 offence largely unused, so attributing an operation and charging anyone for it remain separate problems.
- Who has to decide decision The choice between a unit inside the Cabinet Office and a body accountable to Parliament determines who can be challenged over an attribution once it is made public.
- What's now possible capability Folding the departmental programmes into one centre would give public attribution of influence operations a single owner with a standing mandate.
- What it sets up precedent Exporting the model to European governments before their votes places British attribution judgements inside other states' election disputes.
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Britain already has the criminal offence. The National Security Act 2023 created one aimed at foreign interference, and Sophie Williams-Dunning, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, said it has proved difficult to use so far [15]. "There's a high evidentiary threshold, particularly on proving foreign orchestration," she told Recorded Future News [16]. "That's one reason the offence has been hard to use so far. One of the first tasks for this centre will be finding a way to actually implement it" [16].
Where the centre sits is the open question. Williams-Dunning said Britain "has been overdue a more coherent strategic response to this threat" [17], and that the government's response "has so far been split across several departments" [13]. She cautioned there is "a real difference between a centre inside the Cabinet Office and an agency accountable to Parliament" [18]. "I'd hope this is meant to be the foundation for the latter, not one more unit similar in resourcing to the ones already out there," she said [19].
Joe Devanny, a senior lecturer at King's College London, wrote that a new centre "can mean a lot of different things," "from largely rebadging existing effort, to a significant rethink of your approach" [4]. He said it was unclear where on that spectrum the new body would sit, or whether those details had already been worked out [5]. A spokesperson for the prime minister's office said more information would be released in due course [7].
Burnham's £1.3 billion is an annual spending figure, about £3.6 million a day [10][14]. Spending is a proxy for volume only while the campaigns need staff. The Record reported that experts fear AI is lowering the cost of running such operations [22], and The New York Times reported last week that state-linked actors in Iran and China, along with a private Israeli firm, have begun using largely autonomous AI systems to run influence campaigns with limited human involvement [23].
More nations are grappling with these issues as elections approach across Europe, Burnham said, and "we're ready to share our understanding of how these actors work" [9]. France and Sweden already have agencies tasked with countering this activity, according to The Record [20]. The government's work also covers building community resilience in identifying and combatting disinformation, after reports linked riots in Belfast and Southampton to foreign agitation [12]. Britain and the European Union imposed sanctions earlier this year on Russian cyber and disinformation actors, including a media outlet accused of interfering in elections in Moldova and Armenia [21].
What to watch
- Whether the centre is stood up inside the Cabinet Office or given a statutory footing and parliamentary accountability.
- Whether a budget, headcount and list of absorbed departmental programmes is published when the detail follows.
- The first foreign interference charge under the National Security Act 2023 that rests on the centre's material.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption8
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives40
- Confidence60
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Burnham gave few details about the ultimate shape of what he called the National Centre for Information Defence.
- [2]
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Tuesday he has ordered security chiefs to begin work on a new national center "to detect, attribute and disrupt" hostile state disinformation.
- [3]
Burnham spoke to the U.N. General Assembly in his first address there as prime minister.
- [4]
A new center "can mean a lot of different things," wrote Joe Devanny, a senior lecturer at King's College London, "from largely rebadging existing effort, to a significant rethink of your approach."
- [5]
Devanny said it was unclear where on the spectrum the new body would sit, and whether those details had already been worked out.
- [6]
The move could consolidate work now spread across several government departments.
- [7]
A spokesperson for the prime minister's office said more information would be released in due course.
- [8]
The Cabinet Office is understood to be leading the initial work, with intelligence agencies, other government departments, law enforcement and social media companies involved in determining how the center could operate.
- [9]
"As more elections approach across Europe, more nations are grappling with these issues - some for the first time," Burnham said. "So we're ready to share our understanding of how these actors work, and how we can respond."
- [10]
"The Kremlin spends around £1.3 billion each year on manipulating information," said the prime minister.
- [11]
Burnham accused Russian agencies of using bots and fake websites, falsifying newspaper articles, copying the branding of 28 British organizations including universities and the BBC, and amplifying far-right narratives.
- [12]
The government's work is also looking at how to strengthen the country's ability to build community resilience in identifying and combatting disinformation, in the wake of reports linking riots in Belfast and Southampton to foreign agitation.
- [13]
"The threat environment has vastly changed, and the government's response has so far been split across several departments," Williams-Dunning said.
- [14]
£1.3 billion a year is about £3.6 million a day.
- [15]
Britain has already created a criminal offense specifically aimed at foreign interference under the National Security Act 2023, and Williams-Dunning said the offense has proved difficult to use so far.
- [16]
"There's a high evidentiary threshold, particularly on proving foreign orchestration. That's one reason the offence has been hard to use so far. One of the first tasks for this centre will be finding a way to actually implement it," said Sophie Williams-Dunning, a research analyst at the Royal United Services Institute.
- [17]
Williams-Dunning told Recorded Future News that Britain "has been overdue a more coherent strategic response to this threat."
- [18]
Williams-Dunning cautioned there was "a real difference between a centre inside the Cabinet Office and an agency accountable to Parliament."
- [19]
"I'd hope this is meant to be the foundation for the latter, not one more unit similar in resourcing to the ones already out there," Williams-Dunning said.
- [20]
France and Sweden both have agencies tasked with countering this activity (the source sentence is truncated mid-word).
- [21]
Earlier this year, Britain and the European Union imposed sanctions on Russian cyber and disinformation actors, including a media outlet accused of interfering in elections in Moldova and Armenia.
- [22]
Experts fear artificial intelligence is lowering the cost of running such operations.
- [23]
State-linked actors in Iran and China, along with a private Israeli firm, have begun using largely autonomous AI systems to run influence campaigns with limited human involvement, The New York Times reported last week.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- helpnetsecurity.comUK gears up for fight against Russia’s disinformation machine
1 article · September 24, 2026
- therecord.mediaBurnham announces plan for new UK center to fight disinformation
1 article · September 23, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- UK national security
- State disinformation
- AI-assisted influence operations
Entities
- Andy Burnham
- National Security Act 2023
- RUSI
- National Centre for Information Defence
- Cabinet Office
- Sophie Williams-Dunning