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BREAKING: Boris Johnson has said the “first barrage of UK economic sanctions against Russia” will be revealed today as he warned Vladimir Putin is bent on a “full scale invasion of Ukraine”.

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Russell England 😷💉💙🇪🇺🧳
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@talkRADIO"The Tory party are almost entirely funded by Russian oligarchs, most of whom are sanctioned" - Ian Hislop, 8th October

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“Serious questions” over Tory “Russian linked donations” – Trickett

Jon Trickett MP, Shadow Cabinet Office minister, following Boris Johnson’s appearance on the Andrew Marr Show, said:

“The Tories have serious questions to answer about where their party gets its money. Boris Johnson has confirmed for the first time he played the tennis match paid as a £160,000 donation to the Conservative Party by the wife of a former minister in Putin’s government. He admitted that some Russian oligarchs in the UK “may have obtained their money by corruption”.

“We know the Tories have taken more than £3 million in Russian linked donations since 2010, including £800,000 under Theresa May’s leadership, but we don’t know the nature of all those funds. The Tories also drew positive comments from the Russian Embassy during last year’s general election.

“The Conservative Party can’t remain silent any longer, the public have a right to know what checks if any they made to establish the source of all the wealth amassed by their donors. To put to rest public concerns about the nature of Russian money given to the Tories, we need this information put into the public domain.”

https://labour.org.uk/press/serious-questions-tory-russian-linked-donations-trickett/

Boris Johnson admits he did play £160,000 tennis match with ex-Russian minister's wife

Boris Johnson has admitted he did take part in a tennis match with the wife of a former Russian minister after she donated £160,000 to the Conservative party.

Lyubov Chernukhin, whose husband Vladimir served as a finance minister under President Putin until 2004, made the donation in 2014 to play a game with Mr Johnson and David Cameron.

At the time Mr Cameron insisted Ms Chernukhin "certainly" was not a "Putin crony" and had been resident in the UK for many years.

Labour have attacked the Conservatives for taking donations from wealthy Russians, with Jeremy Corbyn pointing out that the Tories have accepted £800,000 from "oligarchs and their associates".

This morning the Foreign Secretary was asked if the tennis match had actually taken place, replying: "It did".

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/boris-johnson-admits-he-did-play-160000-tennis-match-with-exrussian-ministers-wife

Conservative Party ministers bankrolled by donors linked to Russia

Tories accept thousands from ex-arms supplier

The Conservative Party’s finances came under renewed scrutiny last night as it emerged that two of its MPs on the intelligence watchdog committee and 14 ministers had accepted donations linked to Russia.

Electoral Commission records show that six members of the cabinet and eight junior ministers received tens of thousands of pounds from individuals or businesses with links to Russia. The donations were made either to them or their constituency parties.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/conservative-party-ministers-bankrolled-by-donors-linked-to-russia-2hm5jhwpx

What Changed To Make Evgeny Lebedev No Longer a Security Risk?

Is Evgeny “Lord” Lebedev – newly ennobled by Prime Minister Boris Johnson – a potential security risk? Lebedev’s father, Alexander, was the senior KGB spy in London in 1988 and, to this day, is a pro-Kremlin oligarch with interests in Russia. He is a noted supporter of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and his illegal annexation of Crimea.

The question is a fair one given that no one can simply ‘retire’ from the KGB and that father and son – like President Donald Trump – never openly criticise Putin. Socially, the Lebedevs – who own the Independent and Evening Standard newspapers – work as a unit. Evgeny threw Johnson’s victory party after last December’s General Election, which also happened to be his father’s 60th birthday party.

So is Evgeny a potential security risk? “Yes,” says a former MI6 officer. “Yes,” says an emeritus professor of Russian. “Yes,” said the Special Branch this spring.

But in June that advice, filtered through the Cabinet Office, changed to “no” and the black spot against the wannabe Lord Lebedev vanished.

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/08/20/sweeney-investigates-what-changed-to-make-evgeny-lebedev-no-longer-a-security-risk/

Why would Russia want to interfere in British politics?

Russia’s foreign policy seems based on nihilism, said Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee. But Vladimir Putin is much shrewder than that.

Evgeny Lebedev’s elevation to the House of Lords barely a week after the publication of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s deliberations on Russia underlined just how cavalier Boris Johnson is about possible Russian interference in our political system. Even if Lebedev, as he has always insisted, has no relationship with Russia’s intelligence services, his father is a former KGB operative and it was his ability to leverage his contacts which helped build the family fortunes.

The optics, at the very least, are appalling and certainly beyond parody. The day after the Conservatives’ landslide victory in December, the prime minister and his partner, Carrie Symonds, attended a caviar-and-vodka-fuelled party hosted by Lebedev senior at the family’s multi-million-pound stuccoed mansion overlooking Regent’s Park. This was not the first Lebedev party to which Johnson had been invited. A couple of years ago I was returning from a visit to my brother, who lives in central Italy, when I spotted a very dishevelled-looking Boris Johnson on the same plane. I later read in the papers that he had been returning from one of Evgeny’s notoriously bacchanalian parties at the converted castle which the British-Russian owns near Perugia.

The Russia report makes clear two things – the Tories get a lot of money from Russian oligarchs and the Intelligence and Security Committee believes there should be an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

On that second point, the prime minister predictably responded with words to the effect of ‘It’s all old hat and in any case the people have spoken etc. etc.’ With his eighty-seat majority and his propensity to lie, this has become a stock response to any uncomfortable news. So although the report contained information which should have triggered alarms designed to protect the integrity of our democracy, they failed to go off. So far, so Brexit-era politics.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-would-russia-want-interfere-british-politics/

Startling Facts About London: The Oligarch’s Paradise

Sam Bright explores the ways in which London has become a haven for a class of super rich who wish to keep their money and their secrets hidden

With Russian troops massing on the Ukrainian border, and with Britain largely unable to influence the course of history through diplomacy, attention has rightfully turned to the home front, and how exactly we have aided Vladimir Putin’s regime through domestic policy in recent years.

The Government is keen to show that it is taking action – and has now scrapped the ‘tier 1’ investor visa scheme that has acted as a butler for money laundering over the last decade – welcoming rich individuals, often from corrupt states, with minimal due diligence checks.

Indeed, Britain’s marriage with illicit finance is now long-standing and entrenched – especially in the capital, London, described in the 2020 report by Parliament’s Security and Intelligence Committee as “Londongrad” – a place in which “PR firms, charities, political interests, academia and cultural institutions were all willing beneficiaries of Russian money”.

Wealthy Russians have profited from this oligarch’s paradise, and Russia is currently in the spotlight given its provocations in Ukraine, but this system is certainly not exclusively enjoyed by Russians. The UK, and London, is a dumping ground for dodgy money amassed across the globe, often hidden in the luxury property market.

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-london-the-oligarchs-paradise/

Exclusive: Labour demands Tory Party pay back donations from Russians and end corruption at home

Labour orders PM Boris Johnson to break the Conservative Party links with Russia and stop dirty cash filtering through UK as Putin threatens invasion of Ukraine

Labour is demanding Boris Johnson bans Russia from using Britain as a laundromat for dirty money - and to return Tory donations from Russians.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss are to be told: “We can’t stand up to Russia’s aggression abroad while ignoring Russian-linked corruption at home.”

Labour estimates the Tories have taken more than £5million of Russian linked money over the last 10 years.

And as more British troops are sent to square up against Vladimir Putin’s forces on Ukraine’s borders, shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy and shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves say that cash must be returned.

They say in their letter: “It is shameful that Britain is repeatedly described as the money-laundering capital of the world.

“It is in our national and economic interests to address the challenges of hostile influence and interference which the Government’s inaction and behaviour have regrettably permitted.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/labour-demands-tory-party-pay-26150141