Police investigate Tory MP deepfake defection video

Mid Norfolk MP George Freeman denounced the video as fake, saying he had no intention of leaving the Conservative party

A fake video depicting a Tory MP defecting to Reform UK is being investigated by police.

The Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk, George Freeman, denounced a video circulating on social media as "an AI-generated deepfake", and said he remained "the Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk and have no intention of joining Reform or any other party".

Freeman told the BBC identity theft was "serious... and could undermine trust", while Norfolk Police said the incident was being treated as a potential offence under an act which covers "online false communications".

Meta, which owns Facebook, has been asked by the BBC to comment.

Freeman has been a Conservative MP since 2010 and served in various ministerial capacities in the previous government.

Most recently, he was Minister of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The MP said he was shocked to be targeted and told the BBC: "We're seeing international cyber disruption of our democracy, Russia has a major programme to disrupt our democracy so this could be a prank through Norfolk, it could be somebody who's doing it for somebody else.

"We know this type of material undermines trust. This shreds public trust... and I think it feeds angry populism."

Freeman is calling for robust action to tackle the growing issue of "fake news", including on social media platforms

Norfolk Police released a statement to the BBC saying it was contacted on 16 October "by the office of a Member of Parliament regarding a video circulating on social media".

"An investigation is under way into the matter, which is being treated as a potential offence under Section 179 of the Online Safety Act 2023 (False Communications)."

Freeman said the issue was "pretty serious" but did not think it was "necessarily about me".

"I am not defecting to Reform but [the video] does sound like me, and that's why it's so worrying," he said.

"I think there's a real challenge for governments across the world to keep up with the pace of technology.

"I think we need to be pretty agile in saying if somebody's identity is stolen that is a crime - and making it very clear that the people who are behind it will suffer a fair and reasonable consequence."

He added: "Some will see this and know it's rubbish, but some will see it and think, 'I knew he was a liar' - it can feed violent responses.

"Most importantly it's the theft of somebody's identity.

"My identity is in the public realm... and you forfeit quite a lot of privacy - but imagine if this was a child, or a head teacher or a local business - and you logged on and saw yourself saying things that are not true and deliberately designed to mislead?"

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said Full Fact, a fact-checking organisation, had investigated the video.

It said its experts matched the outfit Freeman was wearing and the background in Westminster to a video the MP posted on YouTube in April 2020, providing an update on the Coronavirus pandemic.

The investigators added that AI appeared to have been used to make it look as though Freeman was saying the words falsely attributed to him, calling it an example of a lip-sync deepfake.