Labour MP breaks rank to blast Andy Burnham's 'sketchy' plan to set up anti-misinformation unit

Veteran Labour MP Graham Stringer has torn into Andy Burnham's "sketchy" plans for a new information unit to target "disinformation" about the UK.

Speaking to GB News, the Labour MP argued that the potential implication on Britons is "very worrying indeed".

The Labour Government has denied that the new unit, set up to fight disinformation, will be a threat to free speech in this country.

Mr Burnham announced plans for the National Centre for Information Defence at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

He said: "Russian agencies have used every means at their disposal to spread lies and disinformation and prey on people's fears.

"I am announcing today that we are developing a new AI defence partnership with the United States to protect our critical national infrastructure."

Defending the move, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting assured that the Government is "not interested in policing domestic political dissent".

Reacting to the plans, Mr Stringer told GB News that he "doesn't quite understand how it's going to work".

However, Mr Stringer said: "It's a very sketchy proposal so far. What worries me, together with Lisa Nandy's statements that they're consulting on putting trusted broadcasters to the top of the list of different news feeds, which puts other organisations right down the list. It's like obliterating them.

"That worries me because, well, the BBC is a wonderful organisation in many ways, but I don't trust it on the European Union, I don't trust it on global warming, it's clearly been shown to be biased in those areas.

"And to put that at the top of other organisations that might have a different view is really state censorship, so I think there's not much sense to it."

Acknowledging the threats to the UK from Russia, Iran and China, Mr Stringer warned that the potential censorship on Britons is "very worrying".

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He said: "If what the Prime Minister was announcing is part of that same family of ideas that somehow the state can decide what you can see, then it's very worrying indeed.

"That isn't to deny, of course, that there is a problem with Russia and Iran and China and probably North Korea trying to affect what is happening in this country by putting out disinformation.

"But it might be that the the solution to that is nearly as bad as the problem it needs thinking through. We need to understand exactly what the Prime Minister is saying."

Noting the "far-right narratives" Mr Burnham hopes to target with the information unit, Mr Stringer argued that the far-left activists are "just as worrying".

He told GB News: "It's a very contentious area, and while I am opposed to the far-right, I'm also opposed to the far-left. I don't know why the Government and the Labour Party, for that matter, are just saying we're worried about the far-right.

"If you go onto the streets of London and Manchester at different times, the people who would describe themselves as on the left were effectively calling for genocide against Jews with the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

"I'm as worried about those people as I am about people who see themselves as the natural inheritors of Adolf Hitler's policies, so I'm against both.

"Why we only target one? I don't understand, and it's another worrying feature of it."