UK Lawmakers Call for National Counter Disinformation Centre to Protect Democracy

A parliamentary committee has urged the government to establish a “National Counter Disinformation Centre” to defend UK democracy against increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns from hostile actors both foreign and domestic.

The recommendation comes from the Foreign Affairs Committee following its investigation into foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI). According to the committee, malign state actors including Russia, China, and Iran, alongside non-state groups such as Daesh, are systematically weaponizing information to “sow distrust, undermine cohesion, and erode confidence in democratic institutions and norms.”

The report highlights how lessons learned by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in defending democracies abroad must now be urgently applied domestically, as committee members recognized alarming patterns of disinformation targeting the UK itself.

“The UK has been the victim of FIMI and, although it is not of the scale we saw elsewhere, we nevertheless learnt how quickly malign actors could build up their adversarial networks,” the committee stated in its report.

A key criticism leveled by parliamentarians is the “unnecessarily fragmented” nature of current counter-disinformation efforts across Whitehall. Responsibilities are currently dispersed among seven government departments, including the FCDO, Ministry of Defence, Home Office, and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which inherited the Counter Disinformation Unit from DCMS in 2023.

“This has created a system which seems to prioritize discussion and bureaucracy over action,” the committee warned. “No one department or associated body has overall leadership.”

Instead, MPs propose following the model of the National Cyber Security Centre, which successfully brings together government agencies, intelligence services, and private sector entities under GCHQ’s umbrella.

Committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry expressed alarm at the scale of organized disinformation campaigns targeting democracies. “It is the new warfare and open liberal democracies are sitting ducks,” she said. “From pushing provable lies, to planting false seeds of doubt, disinformation is the weapon of choice of hostile states seeking to destabilize democracies.”

Thornberry specifically cited Russia’s “hybrid attacks” – including sabotage, assassination attempts, and information warfare – as amounting to “a war against the West,” necessitating a robust defensive posture with the proposed centre at its core.

The committee’s recommendations include placing the new centre on a statutory footing with parliamentary oversight, mirroring similar institutions in Sweden, Ukraine, and France. Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency, established in 2022, provides a potential template, combining research capabilities with practical counter-disinformation strategies.

Beyond structural changes, the report calls for greater transparency with the public about disinformation threats. “Frankly, we need a bit less caution and bit more candour,” Thornberry noted. “Government should, when appropriate, declassify examples of disinformation and provide regular briefings to the media and civil society organisations.”

The committee also expressed concern that valuable intelligence gathered by FCDO’s overseas network isn’t being fully utilized to inform domestic counter-disinformation strategies. MPs have requested evidence showing how insights from abroad are translated into concrete policy responses at home.

Additional recommendations include a funding boost for FCDO’s newly formed Hybrid Threats Directorate, to be financed through the planned increase in defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035.

The Foreign Office acknowledged the committee’s work, noting that Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper had previously recognized the industrial scale approach of some malign actors goes beyond simple “disinformation.” The department promised a full written response to the committee’s findings in line with parliamentary processes.

As democratic nations worldwide grapple with increasingly sophisticated information warfare, the UK’s response could set an important precedent for how liberal democracies defend their information ecosystems while preserving fundamental freedoms.