It was never going to be a quiet debut on the world stage. When the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, stepped up to address the United Nations General Assembly, he had a lot to say about global instability, but one of his most consequential announcements landed far closer to home. With the creation of a new government unit, the National Centre for Information Defence, Burnham signalled that the United Kingdom is drawing a firmer line in the sand when it comes to hostile states using lies and manipulation against British democracy. The plan, which would target online disinformation, deepfakes and…

Imagine waking up to a headline that seems to confirm your worst fear. You share it, you argue with your family, you feel angrier and more isolated. Days later you discover the story was fabricated by a foreign state. That experience, repeated across millions of people, is what the UK prime minister described as an industrial-scale assault on the information environment. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he announced that Britain would create a new National Centre for Information Defence, an official body tasked with protecting the public from online disinformation. The speech was…