Jeremy Corbyn defends citing leaked trade documents amid links to 'Russian disinformation'

Jeremy Corbyn has defended the authenticity of documents he used to attack the Tories over the NHS amid suggestions they were leaked as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Papers cited by Mr Corbyn, which he said proved the Conservatives plan to sell off the NHS, have been linked to a Russian interference by Reddit , a social media site they were uploaded to prior to the Labour leader's reveal.

Reddit said it believed the documents were leaked as "part of a campaign that has been reported as originating from Russia" and had banned 61 accounts following an investigation of suspect activity.

The campaign shared the same pattern of activity as a Russian operation dubbed "Secondary Infektion" uncovered by Facebook earlier this year, it said.

Pressed on this, the Labour leader told Sky News: “This is such nonsense. This such an advanced stage of rather belated conspiracy theories by the Prime Minister.

“When we released the documents, at no stage did the Prime Minister or anybody deny that those documents were real, deny the arguments that we put forward, and if there has been no discussion with the USA about access to our health markets, if all that is wrong, how come after a week they still haven’t said that?

“The issues are that those documents show exactly what the British Government was doing in discussions with Donald Trump’s administration in the USA and also why the Prime Minister has refused to release the report on Russian interference in British politics, which he’s been sitting on for a very long time."

Mr Corbyn claimed that the Prime Minister wanted to "hide the issues and the truth" that he was planning a "sweetheart" trade deal with the US.

“We obtained those documents, we believe those documents to be correct, and nobody until yesterday had denied the correctness of those documents," the Labour leader said.

“The Prime Minister has answers to give, which he refuses to do, about Russian donations to the Tory Party or the report that he is sitting on about Russian interference in British politics.

“Of course there should be no interference in our British political system by Donald Trump or the Russians.”

Earlier this morning, former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Nicky Morgan said "we should be concerned" about Russian interference in the election.

Ms Morgan said: "Those who seem to know more, who follow when information like this is published, are asserting that this has the hallmarks of Russian interference."

She added: “It’s something we have to be alive to and watch in terms of our democratic processes. As you say the content already – the prime minister had made very clear that actually does not reflect government policy, the NHS is absolutely not for sale, not on the table.

“If this is the result of overseas interference, trying to influence elections, then obviously that is a real concern and it’s good to call these things out as quickly as possible.”

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald renewed calls for the Government to allow a report detailing Russian interference in UK elections to be published.

He said: "If we want to get to the bottom of the extent to which the Russian state interferes in elections, can we please publish the Intelligence and Security Committee report?

"Let's get that out there. That should have been published ages ago."

Labour again refused to discuss the source for the documents.

"These documents reveal the plot against our NHS. And of course neither the UK nor the US government have denied their authenticity. Our releasing them to journalists was clearly in the public interest," a Labour spokesman said.