A House of Commons report into fake news has caused a diplomatic incident between Malta and the United Kingdom.

In a statement issued on Monday, the government said that Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela had spoken to his UK counterpart about “false information” related to Malta finding its way into a parliamentary committee's report.

The interim report, issued by the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee, cites “evidence” that big data firm SCL had been “advising Malta’s Labour Party for several years before the 2013 elections.” The allegation is footnoted with a link to a blog post by Manuel Delia.

SCL Group would later go on to set up Cambridge Analytica, which was wound down earlier this year following a Facebook data leaking scandal.

Last May, the Labour Party had denied having any contact with Cambridge Analytica, with a spokesman answering a series of questions on the matter with a single “no.”

In its statement on Monday, the government reiterated that stance, saying the parties involved had categorically denied that “SCL and/or Cambridge Analytica” had been advising the Labour Party for “several years before the 2013 elections”, as alleged in the report, or that such services were provided before, during or after those elections in Malta.

READ: British MP links Caruana Galizia and Cambridge Analytica

The government said it was ironic that a report into fake news “contained false and unsubstantiated information, from anonymous websites, which were immediately and strongly denied by the Maltese government.”

Highlighting Mr Delia's “Nationalist” links, the government dismissed the blog post in question as being full of false assumptions, “supposition” and “irresponsible guesswork to spread malicious gossip.”

“Not only does the blog fail to provide any evidence to back up its claims, it also fails to recognise the public denial of the accusations,” the government said.

The government said it had made representations to the House of Commons
committee chair and members and called on it to “rectify this serious error” by the time the report was finalised.