Russian Tory donors named in secret report
Intelligence agencies are ‘furious’ over No 10’s block on publication
Tom Harper and Caroline Wheeler
November 10 2019, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
thetimes.co.uk
Nine Russian business people who gave money to the Conservative Party are named in a secret intelligence report on the threats posed to UK democracy which was suppressed last week by Downing Street.
Oligarchs and other wealthy Tory donors were included in the report on illicit Russian activities in Britain by the cross-party intelligence and security select committee (ISC), whose publication was blocked by No 10.
Some Russian donors are personally close to the prime minister. Alexander Temerko, who has worked for the Kremlin’s defence ministry and has spoken warmly about his “friend” Boris Johnson, has gifted more than £1.2m to the Conservatives over the past seven years.
MPs on the ISC, which conducted an 18-month inquiry, were also briefed on Alexander Lebedev, the former KGB spy in London whom the last Labour government allowed to buy the London Evening Standard newspaper.
Lebedev’s son Evgeny invited Johnson when he was foreign secretary to parties at the family’s converted castle near Perugia, Italy. The future prime minister apparently travelled without the close-protection police officers that normally accompany senior ministers of state during the trip in April 2018.
The largest Russian Tory donor is Lubov Chernukhin, the wife of Vladimir Chernukhin, a former ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. She paid £160,000 in return for a tennis match with Johnson and has donated more than £450,000 in the last year alone.
Britain’s intelligence agencies are understood to be “furious” at the delay in releasing the report because measures to protect sensitive information have already been taken.
It is not known whether the Tory donors are named in the public section of the report, or whether they have been included in its confidential annex, which will remain classified indefinitely.
The government’s argument that it needs more time to redact information has been dismissed by the former cabinet secretary Lord Butler, Lord Ricketts, a former national security adviser, and Lord Anderson, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.
Last week, Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, told MPs the delay was “utterly unjustifiable, unprecedented and clearly politically motivated”. She added: “I fear it is because they realise that this report will lead to other questions about the links between Russia and Brexit and the current leadership of the Tory party, which risks derailing their election campaign. What is Downing Street so worried about?”
Thornberry also raised a whistleblower’s claims regarding “relationships” that Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, made during the “mysterious three years he spent in post-communist Russia”. She said the Downing Street chief of staff allegedly met Vladislav Surkov, who is known as the “grey cardinal” of the Kremlin and has close links to Russia’s security agencies.
In the Commons, Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, said last week that he would not comment on security clearances, but denied the “insinuation” that No 10 was “in the grip of a Kremlin mole”.
In a letter to Thornberry last week, Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, also did not deny the unusual arrangement. “Classified information, especially intelligence, is made available only to those with the appropriate security clearance,” he wrote. “This applies to Mr Cummings and his access is appropriate for someone in his role.”
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We cannot speculate on what may or may not be in a leaked parliamentary report.”
Andrew Gwynne, a Labour parliamentary candidate, said: “Billionaires fund the Conservative Party, so this sordid cover-up shouldn’t be surprising. The Tories blocked this report and oppose tax transparency so their billionaire backers can continue to rip us off unchallenged.
“Labour is on the side of the many, not the few, so we’ll get dirty money out of politics, introduce an oligarch levy and take on the vested interests selling out our people and public services.”
@TomJHarper
thetimes.co.uk
Comments(36)
Newest
No doubt this is down to Lord Haw Haw alias John Simpson TEFL, our man in Moscow, the Spectator journalist and editor of the BBC World Affairs running the Rees Mogg’s Appreciation Facebook group and filling the minds of its 24000 die hard brexit members.
We have been taken over by the Ministry of Truth - Boris Johnson is the truth. All criticism is to be aimed at Labour.
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No comments.
well done Rupert....marvellously concealed down in page 20 something
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Let us see the report first.
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So why wasn’t this the main headline this morning rather than repeating standard party political positions with no real journalism as the headline?
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Seems perfectly legitimate to me. Why wouldn’t a Russian businessman take a keen interest in supporting traditional conservative values to help build a stronger, fairer Britain for all. Right?
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The thing is, Labour - its "the few" that keep "the many". However, if you turn the "many" into self reliant "few " (and I mean self reliant - not state reliant) and they thus become "the many" that would be a great result with no need for Labour.
However, the Tories need to cut the ties with their financial supporters from Russia and China - and Emily Thornbury and her ilk reminds me of a kettle.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if social media election help is also forthcoming from these donors. Hard core Brexit is currently more important to Russia than socialism!
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Why are journalists being so slow to use their sources and leak this report?
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It is a very tawdry look on so many fronts that someone would pay money to play tennis with Boris, and the amount is scary
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Well, well. Isn't this tucked away in the quiet corner.
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Lets not get all paranoid like the Americans
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The question remains.
Why wouldn’t Johnson release the report?
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This should have been the real headline news IMHO, but The Times is in electioneering mode for Boris!
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Dodgy Russian oligarchs fund the conservative party! No wonder they don't want the public to see the report. Oh and that's the same conservative party that wants to make us poorer and destabilise Europe by enacting brexit.
Can anyone put two and two together? |
