Britain will retaliate to rogue nations like Russia if they hack future elections

BRITAIN will retaliate against rogue nations like Russia if they use cyber assaults to interfere with our elections in the future.

The government’s top law officer delivered the warning in a bid to heap pressure on the Kremlin to halt its hacking and black propaganda programmes.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright insisted that international law gives the UK the legal right to hit back hard and without warning.

The threat comes after Russia was accused of attempts to rig the Brexit referendum in 2016, as well as the 2017 general election.

Moscow’s army of internet warriors have also tried to disrupt a series of other polls across the West, including the recent US and French presidential elections.

Senior Tory MP Mr Wright said all countries should “remain free from external coercive intervention in the matters of government”.

He added: “A breach of this principle of non-intervention provides victim states with the ability to take action in response aimed at bringing an end to the unlawful act”.

Eavesdropping spy service GCHQ and the MoD’s cyber unit will also retaliate without warning if an enemy nation attempts a “covert cyber intrusion” that risks inflicting serious damage on Britain, Mr Wright also said.

And he named an assault on the NHS’s computer network or breaching a nuclear power station’s online security as two examples.

But any retaliatory strike to a cyber attack cannot legally include force and must be “proportionate” to remain legal, Mr Wright added.

The warnings came as the Attorney General issued a call for a new system of world rules to halt spiralling cyber attacks from hostile nations that also include Iran and North Korea.

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The US government also issued the same threat to Russia if it interferes with America’s midterm Congressional elections in November.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Donald Trump’s administration “will not tolerate” new Kremlin attacks and is ready to take “appropriate counter measures”.