The Institute for Statecraft is a Thinktank founded in 2009 by Christopher Donnelly and Daniel Lafayeedney, legally based in Fife, Scotland. Its stated objects are to advance education in the fields of governance and statecraft, and to advance human rights. The organisation manages the 'Integrity Initiative' amongst other projects. It has received considerable government funding, nearly £2 million for 2018-19.
Integrity Initiative
The Integrity Initiative is a project of the Institute for Statecraft with a stated mission of defending democracy from disinformation, in particular from Russia. In late 2018, Russian media asserted that the internationalhacktivist group Anonymous released documents about the Integrity Initiative, that purported to show the programme was part of a disinformation project to interfere in other countries. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office blamed Russia for the release of documents, which were said to be "intended to confuse audiences and discredit an organisation which is working independently to tackle the threat of disinformation". The GCHQNational Cyber Security Centre launched an inquiry into possible computer security breaches at the Institute for Statecraft.
In December 2018, the Sunday Mail reported that The Integrity Initiative's Twitter account had been used to attack Leader of the OppositionJeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party and Seumas Milne, the director of communications for Corbyn. The Foreign Office minister, Alan Duncan ordered an investigation into the reports and stated “Not only must stop, I want to know why on earth it happened in the first place.” MP Chris Williamson argued that it promoted the "denigration of the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn" and called for an inquiry. In response to Labour Party complaints about this use of government funds in a parliamentary question on 12 December 2018, the minister stated that government funding "does fund the management of the Integrity Initiative’s social media account", to which Shadow Foreign SecretaryEmily Thornberry responded that the Integrity Initiative project proposal included "social media activity". On 13 December 2018, the Scottish charity regulator OSCR confirmed it had opened an inquiry into the Institute for Statecraft. In April 2019, Christopher Donnelly apologised, noting that Scottish charity law does not allow them to make party political comment: The Daily Record, which had published an examination of the Integrity Initiave earlier in 2019, was critical of the organisation after the release of the apology. In an editorial, it said that the Integrity Initiative "has apparently left itself exposed to Russian hackers, fallen foul of Foreign Office rules, made itself the subject of an emergency question in the House of Commons and apparently broken charity law". It claimed the organisation runs "clusters of media people, some who admit to being involved, others who don’t". The Labour party also called for an investigation of the Integrity Initiative and its links to the British government. In August 2019 the OSCR provided the findings of its investigation to the Institute for Statecraft. These were that the charity was not meeting the requirements of a charity in Scotland because its purpose was not entirely charitable, the Integrity Initiative did not provide a "public benefit in furtherance of the charity’s purposes" and the benefits that the Institute provided to its trustees were not clearly incidental to its operation. The trustees of the Institute then took appropriate steps to comply with their requirements including terminating the charity’s involvement with the Integrity Initiative. As a result the OSCR announced in November 2019 that it would not take formal actions against the Institute and would continue to monitor its activities.
Funding
The Integrity Initiative received government funding of £296,500 in the 2017-18 financial year and would receive a further £1,961,000 in 2018-19. This funding was allocated from the cross-department Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, to counter "disinformation" overseas, as part of a £100 million five years programme. The funding was part of the Counter Disinformation and Media Development Programme. In Financial Years 2016-17 and 2017-18, the UK Ministry of Defence through its Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust's Local Grants Programme awarded a total of £177,650 to 12 separate small projects run by the Shared Outcomes Programme, an initiative of the Institute for Statecraft. In addition, in 2017 the British Army made a payment of £6,800 to the Institute for Statecraft for specialist training. The Institute for Statecraft has also received funding from NATO, the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence, the US State Department and Facebook.
