London (AFP) – New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone posing as Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, several media outlets reported on Monday. According to Politico, which broke the story quoting anonymous sources, the British leader sent a “few messages” via an unspecified communication channel to a person he believed to be Wiles before becoming suspicious.
The incident was deemed serious enough for the British embassy in Washington to raise the matter with the White House, according to two sources cited by Politico. Neither the date nor the content of the exchanges is known. Burnham succeeded former Labour Party leader Keir Starmer as prime minister on July 20.
“We do not comment on national security matters,” a spokesperson for Burnham’s Downing Street office said, without denying the exchanges. Burnham is not the first prominent British politician to fall victim to this type of hoax.
In 2024, the British government released a video of a phone call in which the then foreign minister David Cameron was duped by someone posing as former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. The Foreign Office explained at the time that it had disclosed the incident to preempt any attempt by the perpetrators to manipulate the footage.
© 2024 AFP
