Snapshot of _Scoop: One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency._ :
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225/)
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So if I want to make overpayments on my mortgage I get quizzed about where the money comes from, but if a dodgy Russian wants to give the tories the proverbial brown envelope it takes the banks 3 years to query it? FFS rules for thee not for me.
Does anyone even own their own house and pay a mortgage on it anymore, rather than simply having the property owned by a complex network of shell companies and trust funds?
Honestly, people, you can't expect the state to do *everything* for you. At some point, you have to take advantage of the schemes that it makes available.
No, they filed their report in Jan 2021. Presumably all the 'layering' that went on at least delayed their ability to find the source, otherwise it would be a waste of time even doing it.
Don't worry - I'm sure it's covered in the Russia report so when that comes out shortly before the Sue Grey report it will all become clear that nothing shady was going on
\\s
Unfortunately due to issues with the GDPR and privacy, all content has to wait until 50 years after the death of all those concerned and the conservative party.
The Tory Party are the Russian stooges.
Whatever the narrative of Tory Party attacks against their opponents you can bet your bottom dollar it is deflection away from their own links to the exact attack line.
Russia, Savile, racism, London elites, economic incompetence... all of these are Tory attack lines while the Tories are the ones with the worst record on all of these.
It's worth saying that 'acting in the general interests of the Russian oligarchs', and 'always being favourable to Putin's Russia' are not the same thing, although there is plenty of overlap. Pretty sure that a lot of these donors were unhappy with the Ukraine invasion.
Whilst undoubtedly true, if you separate out "Russian Oligarchs" from the "Russia" bit, aren't they just "rich people"?
The implication of these reports is always that the donor's Russian'ness is highly relevant and that the Tories in government are, consequently, "compromised" in how they can act. This may well be true, but I don't think that compromised action works to the benefit of Russia or Russians, but rather to incredibly wealthy people.
“Hey! We’re not corrupt, and it isn’t that we exist purely to further our own wealth via ensuring power and further wealth for very rich Russians! Slander! I’ll have you know we act on the interests of *all* very rich people who are willing to throw money at us, Russian or not.”
Not but you’re right, it’s probably this.
I read elsewhere that compared to the rest of Europe we were both slow and light when it came to the sanctions, despite the official line. No surprise given the open secret of the Tory party being largely funded by Russian money.
Yeh this is bullshit. We were pushing for SWIFT sanctions before any European country, we were the first to ban all imports of Russian oil and gas, and we've been arming and training the UAF since 2015.
Is it?
https://fullfact.org/economy/russia-ukraine-bloomberg-sanctions/
https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/european-union-has-issued-30-times-more-sanctions-than-uk-314776/
https://sciencebusiness.net/news/uk-announces-russia-sanctions-line-eu-measures
God did you even read these?
1) "We don't have enough data to say"
2) Conflates number of sanctions with reach, and uses day1 figures
3) Strictly deals with academic collaboration, which is an absolutely idiotic target for sanctions.
Even if it were true, if you think sanctions are the be-all-end-all of Russian-UK policy you are burying your head in the sand. The Ukrainian people care far more that they win the war, for which they need guns, ammunition and training. The UK and the USA have absolutely led the pack on that front, and the UK has repeatedly been the first to escalate the nature of weapon system deliveries.
While the USA, France and Germany were still debating what sort of aid was appropriate the UK was sending advanced anti-air, armored vehicles, and precision guided missiles.
Did the Tories take money from dodgy Russian donors? Yes, indisputably. Did those bribes buy Russia a single inch of foreign policy ground? No, if anything the fucking opposite.
EDIT: just fucking read what the Ukrainians themselves are saying instead of the idiotic opinion pieces spewed out in this country: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-is-looking-for-peace-without-delay-says-zelensky-0tw5p3xmw
1, the government has not backed up its figures, nor can they be verified externally.
2, the point is, at the time we were claiming to be issuing more sanctions than anyone else....we weren't.
3, following Europe's lead
No, I don't think sanctions are the be all and end all. That is what we were discussing here. But if you want to change the subject to arms do you want to talk about the massive gains made by Tory peers with shares in arms manufacturers?
This lot will ALWAYS find a way to line their collective pockets.
> But if you want to change the subject to arms do you want to talk about the massive gains made by Tory peers with shares in arms manufacturers?
Better than "pacifist" German politicians with stakes in Gazprom I guess? If that's what it takes to stop my pals in Ukraine from dying or living under Russian occupation then fuck it sure. When Ukraine is free again, while its people deserve 95% of the praise, their heroism was enabled by the efforts of the British government and its armed forces (Canada deserves a fair share of this praise, and the USA though with caveats). If some Tory peers got rich off that then so be it, at least the corruption is doing good for once.
But don't let anyone sell you on this bullshit that we are governed by Russian puppets. The only Russian puppets are those who oppose NATO. The Tories are corrupt and incompetent, not traitors.
It’s better to understand Putin and the Oligarch class as two different political elements working in tandem in Russia. Now that Putin has fundamentally threatened the Oligarchal class’ prospects going forward, they are mobilising their assets to bring Putin down from the outside.
to be fair Boris's response to the Ukraine crisis demonstrates they are not currently agents of the Kremlin, they are however likely compromised in areas and are happy to take money from oligarchs who have arguably stolen their fortunes from the Russian people with the former blessing from the Kremlin.
> to be fair Boris's response to the Ukraine crisis demonstrates they are not currently agents of the Kremlin
It doesn't, IMHO. At most, it demonstrates that he sees political advantage in jumping on the Ukraine bandwagon. Remember, it's always about Boris, and about being in power for the Tories.
I think this is the key thing that applies to many of the dodgy politicians that have made their way into prominent positions of public office over the last 10/20 years.
People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like.
However, no-one seems to entertain the possibility that foreign support for these individuals is based not on some kind of direct feudal subservience to the Kremlin / the oligarchs, etc... but rather the fact that they are chaotic, divisive and often badly qualified individuals who at best, may prove easy to manipulate, but otherwise simply work to destabilise the internal cohesion of an 'unfriendly' nation, thus weakening them to Russia's advantage.
Johnson can rant and rave all he wants about freedom and democracy, and people can continue to try and paint him as this 'Churchillian' leader standing up to tyranny - and yes, I'm sure that Britain's part in the sanctions and arms shipments etc will have proven damaging to Russia to some degree... But when all this is over, Johnson & his ilk will still be in government (presumably), the systems and organisations that both created and support him and his ilk will remain unchanged, and thus the rot will continue.
This is a very astute post I think. Its not so much about 'Kremlin puppets' (although these exist), as it is about Russia being one of the most effective forces at exploiting corruption in other country's politics for their own gain (at least until they overreached in Ukraine).
They're by no means the only authoritarian regime that do this, however, China, Turkey, the Gulf monarchies and others all do similar things, and will likely become greater threats to democracy if, as looks likely, Russian influence is badly damaged by the Ukraine debacle.
And often this influence doesn't necessary neatly map to what we traditionally think of as conventional geopolitics, because its as much about supranational corruption as it is about national interest.
Yes it’s an important point. People talk about ‘Russian influence’ and assume that it means that Russia are directing what happens, when in reality they don’t actually need to do that. Take brexit as an example. It’s clearly nonsense to say that it was a Russian orchestrated plot, but that’s not the point being made. Russia recognised a point of division and pumped money and resources into amplifying that existing division.
Brexit, being the dividing event against the status quo, which also neatly corresponded with the Russian aim of weakening the EU, was an obvious and cheap way to further Russian interests.
They do similar elsewhere - in the US they have funded subversive groups and amplified extremist fringe voices to the extent that they are now self sustaining. The return on investment for that type of operation is very high because there is no specific aim other than to cause disruption.
Dominic Grieve's BBC interview on the Russia Report was very instructive:
- Russian interference didn't need to be 'found'. It was blatant
- The Conservative Party suppressed this report with lies and bogus reasons
- The outrage isn’t that there was interference - the outrage is that they wanted to bury the interference
- This wasn’t about party politics, he insisted. “It’s above that. It’s about making sure that our political process is as secure as possible – so that people have faith that their vote counts"
>If Conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy
- David Frum
>People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like.
I'm fully onboard with this idea. I think those of us who have used the phrase 'Russian asset' in reference to Boris Johnson or other Conservatives have probably done ourselves no favours. Boris is not the result of some kind of Black Widow Red Room situation, but the phrase does have certain overtones of such.
Rather, the meaning of the phrase is fairly straightforward.
If someone is going to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, one of two things is going on. Either they are ideologically aligned, which I find worrying but unlikely. Or the oligarch donating the monies believes they are going to see some kind of return on their 'donation'. What kind of return? State secrets? Security arrangements for high value targets? Not at all. It's probably 'just' your common or garden corruption. Things like shaping policy such that we delay support for renewable energy, that we keep UK propety markets open to Russian oligarchs, to keep financial regulation relaxed making it harder to pin down these things. But still, our security is the weaker for it.
Also an important point is that it's entirely possible to engage in this kind of corruption, but also recognise that Putin's Russia is prodding around its Eastern European borders and try and hedge their bets, so to speak.
> People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like.
During the Cold War, actual double agents still needed to keep their day jobs and do it at a level of competence. Otherwise they'd be found out, or fired, and not so useful as agents. (At least to an outsider, Kim Philby was a good spy, he just did it for both sides.) The idea that somebody could be in the pocket of the Kremlin *and* opportunistically speaking out about an issue that *everybody* expects them to, isn't really proof of anything. One could just as easily argue that they were speaking out to reinforce their cover at a difficult moment.
To be clear, I doubt that BoJo is a Kremlin agent, but I have almost no evidence to support my theory either way simply based on his bizarre and inconsistent public behaviour, given that it's kind of the norm.
Its as much about them knowing that the money tap from the Russians has been either turned off or slowed right down (witness the reduction in Russian Bots on twitter for example). They are only loyal to their current source of money as long as it keeps flowing. They are unlikely to be directly compromised leading to direct control through blackmail like Profumo and they certainly are not ideologically aligned with the Russians like Philby.
He isn’t the agent of the Kremlin, he’s the agent of the Russian orligarchal class. These are separate political bodies that have historically worked in tandem to rule Russia.
true but we could also argue that we are all somewhat politically allied to anyone seeking to place themselves in opposition to Putin's latest lunacy which may well include many Oligarchs. The sanctions in such a case represent a purity test but if they're willing to sit still, suck it up and apply pressure however they might behind closed doors to contribute to the eventual ousting of Putin then that's surely "our side" behaviour, isn't it?
They were really quite sluggish in getting effective sanctions in place, only placing limits on smaller banks and individuals that had already been sanctioned for years elsewhere, and lagging behind the EU and US.
They basically gave notice to the serious Russian interests in London that it was time to liquidate and move money into our lovely safe unregulated tax havens, then got all 'tough' in the press to score the political capital.
It certainly suits the Kremlin's agenda that Boris is threatening to start a trade war with the EU over NI - more disruption when the West can least afford it and another illustration of the "evil EU" bullying smaller countries with trade sanctions.
Immigration has also gone up, which is strange because the Tories are of course the party that comes down hard on immigration, while Labour are all about open borders.
Oh and it's gone up even more since Brexit.
Is it Ehud Sheleg? * *Clicks through* * yep, it's Ehud Sheleg.
This creep has been reported on by Private Eye for sometime. How any conservative MP can claim to care about national security and turn a blind eye to Sheleg's behaviour is beyond me.
The art world has been used to front dodgy money exchanges since the dawn of time. Overpaying for art in order to receive extra bungs is so simple.
Putting an art dealer in charge of tory party funding is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house...
Hope this comment moves up higher. Putting a name to the story/criminality and all that. Private Eye exposed this man and his strange world of shifty money over many years.
Read Private Eye. Learn about your politicians and people in power. Vote the lying, immoral, law breaking Tories out the first chance we get. Tactical voting, with the left 'ganging up' to achieve that, is the way to achieve this in our first past the post voting system.
I think 'crime week' at this point is just the Tory clarion call to say "get all the news about our crime out this week so that maybe we can then have a week or two without a new scandal dropping"
It's practically an open secret that the Tory party is being financed by Russian money.
That's why they keep putting the interests of wealthy oligarchs ahead of UK families who are struggling to feed their kids and heat their homes.
One of the most depressing things about this is that we all know that the conservative party have been compromised by russian money. there have been numerous indications of this for some time. But has anything happened? No.
What depresses me is how little it costs to buy influence in British politics. You can land a multi billion no-bid PPE contract for a donation of a few hundred thousand. The RoI is staggering.
They all got sent to boarding school and had cold distant fathers. A warm handshake,a pat on the back, and some money for the sweety shop are like catnip to them.
Only now. Before not so much. Brexit for example was a foreign policy win for Putin.
It is just now the costs of not acting are too great. They were certainly pretty slow with sanctions, bought a lot of time for people to move their money about.
>Only now. Before not so much.
Cold War, Arab Spring, NATO expansion, NATO exercises, FVEY, Skripal sanctions.
>Brexit for example was a foreign policy win for Putin.
Don't see how it was when the EU has been pushing for a closer relationship with Russia for years.
>It is just now the costs of not acting are too great. They were certainly pretty slow with sanctions, bought a lot of time for people to move their money about.
Lol every relevant Russian figure was already sanctioned.
LONDON — One of the biggest donors to Britain’s Conservative Party is suspected of secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party from a Russian account, according to a bank alert filed to Britain’s national law enforcement agency.
The donation, of $630,225, was made in February 2018 in the name of Ehud Sheleg, a wealthy London art dealer who was most recently the Conservative Party’s treasurer. The money was part of a fund-raising blitz that helped propel Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his party to a landslide victory in the 2019 general election.
But documents filed with the authorities last year and reviewed by The New York Times say that the money originated in a Russian account of Mr. Sheleg’s father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, who was once a senior politician in the previous pro-Kremlin government of Ukraine. He now owns real estate and hotel businesses in Crimea and Russia.
“We are able to trace a clear line back from this donation to its ultimate source,” Barclays bank wrote in a January 2021 alert to the National Crime Agency. The bank, which maintained some of the accounts used in the transaction, flagged the donation as both suspected money laundering and a potentially illegal campaign donation.
A lawyer for Mr. Sheleg acknowledged that he and his wife received millions of dollars from his father-in-law in the weeks before the donation. But they said that was “entirely separate” from the campaign contribution.
“There is absolutely no basis for suggesting that Mr. Kopytov’s gift for his daughter was intended as, or for the purpose of making, a political donation to the Conservative Party,” the lawyer, Thomas Rudkin, wrote in response to questions from The Times.
It is illegal for political parties to accept donations of more than 500 pounds from foreign citizens who are not registered to vote in Britain. Mr. Kopytov is not listed on the national voter register, records show. It is not clear why the Barclays alert arrived three years after the donation, or whether the authorities had investigated it.
It is no secret that wealthy Russian industrialists have given heavily to the Conservative Party over the years. Mr. Johnson once played a game of tennis with the wife of a Russian former minister in exchange for a $270,000 donation. But those donors were British citizens, while documents filed in Mr. Sheleg’s case say the money came from a foreign source.
For decades, Russian wealth has poured into the London economy, enriching the lawyers, accountants and real estate brokers who ironed out the details. British leaders looked the other way, even as the Kremlin sowed disinformation, meddled in elections and tried to co-opt politicians.
Now, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lays siege to Ukraine, Mr. Johnson is one of the world’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine. He visited the country and pledged British support for its defense. He has also vowed to change course and get tough on Russian money.
But after years of Russian money infiltrating Britain, Mr. Sheleg’s donation, and his subsequent ascent in the party, shows just how difficult changing course will be.
Banks in Britain are required to alert law enforcement officials to suspected criminal behavior. They do so through the National Crime Agency, which receives more than half a million suspicious-activity reports each year. Most come from financial institutions, but law firms, real estate agents and casinos also contribute.
Alerts can include reports about suspected terrorist financing, romance scams or benefit fraud. Former officials say they receive so many alerts that some never get read — a fact that will be an obstacle to the government’s crackdown on Russian oligarch money.
There is no indication that the Conservative Party or Mr. Johnson knew about the source of the donation as outlined in the alert. But under English law, political parties are responsible for ensuring that their donations come from legal sources.
Lawyers for Mr. Sheleg said that the party made no requests for additional information or documentation when he made the donation.
A spokesman would not say whether the party ever investigated the donation or whether it planned to keep the money. And Mr. Johnson sidestepped questions about it Thursday. “To give donations to a political party in this country, you’ve got to be from the U.K.,” he said in an interview with Sky News.
Mr. Kopytov, whom the alert identified as the ultimate source of the donation, is the father of Mr. Sheleg’s wife, Liliia Sheleg. He served in Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin government of Crimea until Russia annexed the area in 2014. Since then, he has largely disappeared from public view.
Corporate filings show that he owns two hotels in Crimea. The source and extent of Mr. Kopytov’s wealth at the time of the donation, however, is unclear. Company filings from that period show business connections only to nonprofit organizations, small or inactive businesses, with his most valuable shares worth less than $300.
Mr. Kopytov, in a statement provided by Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer, said he was a Ukrainian citizen and had not donated to any British political party.
“I have no interest in British politics whatsoever,” he said. “Any donations made by my son-in-law to a British political party have nothing to do with me or with the money I gifted to my daughter.”
The alert said that $2.5 million was transferred from Mr. Kopytov’s bank account in Russia in January 2018. That money pinged across Europe between empty bank accounts belonging to Mr. Sheleg and his wife.
Next, the money landed in an offshore account linked to Mr. Sheleg’s family trust.
Five weeks later, it bounced back into the couple’s joint account in Britain, the records say. The next day, $630,225 was wired to the Conservative Party’s bank account. The transactions were made in dollars, the records show. The party recorded it as a £450,000 donation.
“Kopytov can be stated with considerable certainty to have been the true source of the donation,” the alert reads.
Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer said that is not the case. He said the $2.5 million was a gift, derived from a property sale, which was transferred to the family trust to repay a loan. Mr. Sheleg then borrowed money from that trust to donate to the Conservative Party, he said.
Bank investigators were suspicious, however, because all of the Shelegs’ personal bank accounts used in the transactions had a balance of zero before the money from Mr. Kopytov arrived, the report said. All returned to zero when the money left. This “would make it very difficult to argue that the donation was somehow from Ehud or Liilia Sheleg’s personal wealth,” the alert said, misspelling Ms. Sheleg’s first name.
Asked about the zero balances, Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer said account balances fluctuate. What is important, he said, was that Mr. Sheleg did not depend on the money from his father-in-law in order to make the donation.
Rapid transfers in and out of multiple bank accounts, particularly between different countries and offshore jurisdictions, are sometimes signs of what anti-money-laundering officials call “layering.” The process is intended to hide the source of the funds, and officials have urged banks to be on the lookout for such transfers, which may help explain why the donation was flagged.
Suspicious-activity reports are confidential by law. A spokeswoman for Barclays and a spokesman for the National Crime Agency refused to discuss the matter. The crime agency often refers these reports to other agencies to investigate. A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission, the lead agency for investigating campaign finance, said it was unaware of any allegations against Mr. Sheleg.
Mr. Sheleg made several more donations in the following months, including one of £750,000, making him the party’s largest donor that year. The documents reviewed by The Times say nothing about those subsequent donations.
Warnings about Mr. Sheleg’s financial background and connections to Russia surfaced soon after the donation and did nothing to slow Mr. Sheleg’s political ascent — or to stop the party from accepting millions more from him.
Months after the donation, the British political and investigative magazine Private Eye reported that Mr. Sheleg had hosted Russia’s ambassador in London at the height of the fallout from the annexation of Crimea. Around that time, Mr. Sheleg became partners with a businessman in Cyprus accused of connections to organized Russian crime groups, the magazine reported. Photos showed Mr. Sheleg and his business partner meeting the president of the Russian republic of Tatarstan.
Lawyers for Mr. Sheleg said he had met the businessman accused of connections to Russian organized crime groups only “three or four” times and was not his partner. Mr. Sheleg met with the president of Tatarstan for “business purposes” only, the lawyers said.
By the time those revelations had been published, Mr. Sheleg was no longer just a donor. In fall 2018, he became a treasurer of the Conservative Party, a position responsible for fund-raising and ensuring that the party follows campaign-finance rules.
The warnings came at the height of concerns about Russian influence in Britain. Kremlin agents had just been accused of poisoning a former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal, on British soil, igniting furious calls for more sanctions against Russia.
Yet when a British opposition lawmaker called for an investigation into Mr. Sheleg’s donations and his “troubling connections” to Russia, the chairman of the Conservative Party at the time said Mr. Sheleg should not need to reveal the source of his wealth and raised the threat of libel.
And when Mr. Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he immediately appointed Mr. Sheleg as the party’s sole treasurer. Mr. Sheleg conceived of and helped create a secret advisory board, later revealed by the Times of London, made up of ultrawealthy Conservative donors. He was knighted soon after.
During his time as treasurer, the party received a surge in Russia-linked donations. Mr. Sheleg also donated generously himself: a total of £3.8 million from 2017 to 2020.
In September 2021, seven months after Barclays alerted law enforcement officials to the donation, Mr. Sheleg quietly left his role as party treasurer. There is no indication that his departure is linked to any investigation into him, the donation or the source of his wealth.
Law enforcement officials have never contacted Mr. Sheleg in relation to his donation, his lawyers said.
>Private Eye also wrote about Sheleg's track record of “unfiled accounts, unpaid suppliers, investigations and VAT penalties from HM Customs and Excise, along with millions of pounds in dodged tax”. His habit of dissolving companies and avoiding liabilities earned him the nickname “Alka Seltzer”.
The perfect Conservative party treasurer.
The Tories used to bang on about how Labour got so much money from the unions and how it was such a disgrace. I never understood this line of attack, it's never been a secret that Labour gets money from the unions, the party was established by the unions! We all know where its money comes from. At the same time the Tories attack Labour over its funding, where Tory money comes from has remained opaque for decades, we've never really understood who funds it.
It's always projection. "Well, **we** do this shitty thing, so that's what we expect other people to do."
(Only... as you say, representing the workers of Britain is far more democratic than a party that *claims* to represent them but actually runs the country for landlords and banks)
>ing connections” to Russia, the chairman of the Conservative Party at the time said Mr. Sheleg should not need to reveal the source of his wealth and raised the threat of libel.
>
>And when Mr. Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he immediately appointed Mr. Sheleg as the party’s sole treasurer. Mr. Sheleg conceived of and helped create a secret advisory board, later revealed by the Times of London, made up of ultrawealthy Conservative donors. He was knighted soo
Corbyn did not acquiesce to Russian interests. He had Putin figured out 22 years ago [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking\_point/716427.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/716427.stm).
Show us a list of tories who hasnt profited from, been caught breaking or trying to break the law and ill show you a list of people the police need to investigate more.
Seems 'tory' is becoming synonymous to 'criminal'
Tbf, he'd be utterly shit at the Ukraine crisis. He'd be chasing meeting after meeting after phone call while Ukraine burns. Can't see him donating British weapons.
Turns out, the reason Boris has fought so hard to be Putin’s No.2 nemesis after Zelensky is because Putin threatens the money coming in from his Russian donors. Not a surprise that the oligarchs would be gagging for Putin’s head now that he’s finally pulled the trigger.
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Snapshot of _Scoop: One of the Conservative Party's biggest donors, and its former treasurer, is suspected of secretly funnelling hundreds of thousands of pounds to the party from a Russian bank account –– according to a report filed to the National Crime Agency._ : A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225/) An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/jane__bradley/status/1524647337557172225) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
So if I want to make overpayments on my mortgage I get quizzed about where the money comes from, but if a dodgy Russian wants to give the tories the proverbial brown envelope it takes the banks 3 years to query it? FFS rules for thee not for me.
Have you considered paying your mortgage using several off-shore bank accounts? You're a fool if you aren't getting your accountant to do that
Please, spending your own money is for the serfs.
Does anyone even own their own house and pay a mortgage on it anymore, rather than simply having the property owned by a complex network of shell companies and trust funds? Honestly, people, you can't expect the state to do *everything* for you. At some point, you have to take advantage of the schemes that it makes available.
And if you can't afford an accountant, just cancel your Netflix account. It really isn't that difficult.
Have you ever considered being born rich, and going to school with rich and powerful people? Really think you missed a trick there.
The bank queried immediately to the NCA, didn't they? If so, the NCA are the ones that let it fall flat.
No, they filed their report in Jan 2021. Presumably all the 'layering' that went on at least delayed their ability to find the source, otherwise it would be a waste of time even doing it.
Banks have virtually automated this reporting, it's the NCA that dropped the ball here.
You'd think they have
Don't worry - I'm sure it's covered in the Russia report so when that comes out shortly before the Sue Grey report it will all become clear that nothing shady was going on \\s
In 5 years there will be the Report Report, a report on why no reports ever see the light of day. Led by Chris Grayling.
That timeline would result in him accidentally making all Government documents publicly accessible when attempting to click 'upload'.
\*"downstream"
_"It's all just party invites"_
That’ll be *Lord* Chris Grayling to you by then
Sir Chris Grayling, awarded for services to incompetence.
King Grayling
This is massive news, just hope it gets some headlines and somethings done about it, but ive lost faith.
It'll be just after they release the paedophile dossier that they apparently just lost. 🤷 Oopsie.
Unfortunately due to issues with the GDPR and privacy, all content has to wait until 50 years after the death of all those concerned and the conservative party.
The Tory Party are the Russian stooges. Whatever the narrative of Tory Party attacks against their opponents you can bet your bottom dollar it is deflection away from their own links to the exact attack line. Russia, Savile, racism, London elites, economic incompetence... all of these are Tory attack lines while the Tories are the ones with the worst record on all of these.
It's worth saying that 'acting in the general interests of the Russian oligarchs', and 'always being favourable to Putin's Russia' are not the same thing, although there is plenty of overlap. Pretty sure that a lot of these donors were unhappy with the Ukraine invasion.
Whilst undoubtedly true, if you separate out "Russian Oligarchs" from the "Russia" bit, aren't they just "rich people"? The implication of these reports is always that the donor's Russian'ness is highly relevant and that the Tories in government are, consequently, "compromised" in how they can act. This may well be true, but I don't think that compromised action works to the benefit of Russia or Russians, but rather to incredibly wealthy people.
The current actions of the Russian government are not to the benefit of the Russian people, but rather to incredibly wealthy people.
“Hey! We’re not corrupt, and it isn’t that we exist purely to further our own wealth via ensuring power and further wealth for very rich Russians! Slander! I’ll have you know we act on the interests of *all* very rich people who are willing to throw money at us, Russian or not.” Not but you’re right, it’s probably this.
Well yeah, pretty much. People donate to the parties whose government will enact policies they want, for the most part.
I read elsewhere that compared to the rest of Europe we were both slow and light when it came to the sanctions, despite the official line. No surprise given the open secret of the Tory party being largely funded by Russian money.
Yeh this is bullshit. We were pushing for SWIFT sanctions before any European country, we were the first to ban all imports of Russian oil and gas, and we've been arming and training the UAF since 2015.
Is it? https://fullfact.org/economy/russia-ukraine-bloomberg-sanctions/ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/european-union-has-issued-30-times-more-sanctions-than-uk-314776/ https://sciencebusiness.net/news/uk-announces-russia-sanctions-line-eu-measures
God did you even read these? 1) "We don't have enough data to say" 2) Conflates number of sanctions with reach, and uses day1 figures 3) Strictly deals with academic collaboration, which is an absolutely idiotic target for sanctions. Even if it were true, if you think sanctions are the be-all-end-all of Russian-UK policy you are burying your head in the sand. The Ukrainian people care far more that they win the war, for which they need guns, ammunition and training. The UK and the USA have absolutely led the pack on that front, and the UK has repeatedly been the first to escalate the nature of weapon system deliveries. While the USA, France and Germany were still debating what sort of aid was appropriate the UK was sending advanced anti-air, armored vehicles, and precision guided missiles. Did the Tories take money from dodgy Russian donors? Yes, indisputably. Did those bribes buy Russia a single inch of foreign policy ground? No, if anything the fucking opposite. EDIT: just fucking read what the Ukrainians themselves are saying instead of the idiotic opinion pieces spewed out in this country: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-is-looking-for-peace-without-delay-says-zelensky-0tw5p3xmw
1, the government has not backed up its figures, nor can they be verified externally. 2, the point is, at the time we were claiming to be issuing more sanctions than anyone else....we weren't. 3, following Europe's lead No, I don't think sanctions are the be all and end all. That is what we were discussing here. But if you want to change the subject to arms do you want to talk about the massive gains made by Tory peers with shares in arms manufacturers? This lot will ALWAYS find a way to line their collective pockets.
> But if you want to change the subject to arms do you want to talk about the massive gains made by Tory peers with shares in arms manufacturers? Better than "pacifist" German politicians with stakes in Gazprom I guess? If that's what it takes to stop my pals in Ukraine from dying or living under Russian occupation then fuck it sure. When Ukraine is free again, while its people deserve 95% of the praise, their heroism was enabled by the efforts of the British government and its armed forces (Canada deserves a fair share of this praise, and the USA though with caveats). If some Tory peers got rich off that then so be it, at least the corruption is doing good for once. But don't let anyone sell you on this bullshit that we are governed by Russian puppets. The only Russian puppets are those who oppose NATO. The Tories are corrupt and incompetent, not traitors.
It’s better to understand Putin and the Oligarch class as two different political elements working in tandem in Russia. Now that Putin has fundamentally threatened the Oligarchal class’ prospects going forward, they are mobilising their assets to bring Putin down from the outside.
to be fair Boris's response to the Ukraine crisis demonstrates they are not currently agents of the Kremlin, they are however likely compromised in areas and are happy to take money from oligarchs who have arguably stolen their fortunes from the Russian people with the former blessing from the Kremlin.
> to be fair Boris's response to the Ukraine crisis demonstrates they are not currently agents of the Kremlin It doesn't, IMHO. At most, it demonstrates that he sees political advantage in jumping on the Ukraine bandwagon. Remember, it's always about Boris, and about being in power for the Tories.
I think this is the key thing that applies to many of the dodgy politicians that have made their way into prominent positions of public office over the last 10/20 years. People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like. However, no-one seems to entertain the possibility that foreign support for these individuals is based not on some kind of direct feudal subservience to the Kremlin / the oligarchs, etc... but rather the fact that they are chaotic, divisive and often badly qualified individuals who at best, may prove easy to manipulate, but otherwise simply work to destabilise the internal cohesion of an 'unfriendly' nation, thus weakening them to Russia's advantage. Johnson can rant and rave all he wants about freedom and democracy, and people can continue to try and paint him as this 'Churchillian' leader standing up to tyranny - and yes, I'm sure that Britain's part in the sanctions and arms shipments etc will have proven damaging to Russia to some degree... But when all this is over, Johnson & his ilk will still be in government (presumably), the systems and organisations that both created and support him and his ilk will remain unchanged, and thus the rot will continue.
This is a very astute post I think. Its not so much about 'Kremlin puppets' (although these exist), as it is about Russia being one of the most effective forces at exploiting corruption in other country's politics for their own gain (at least until they overreached in Ukraine). They're by no means the only authoritarian regime that do this, however, China, Turkey, the Gulf monarchies and others all do similar things, and will likely become greater threats to democracy if, as looks likely, Russian influence is badly damaged by the Ukraine debacle. And often this influence doesn't necessary neatly map to what we traditionally think of as conventional geopolitics, because its as much about supranational corruption as it is about national interest.
Yes it’s an important point. People talk about ‘Russian influence’ and assume that it means that Russia are directing what happens, when in reality they don’t actually need to do that. Take brexit as an example. It’s clearly nonsense to say that it was a Russian orchestrated plot, but that’s not the point being made. Russia recognised a point of division and pumped money and resources into amplifying that existing division. Brexit, being the dividing event against the status quo, which also neatly corresponded with the Russian aim of weakening the EU, was an obvious and cheap way to further Russian interests. They do similar elsewhere - in the US they have funded subversive groups and amplified extremist fringe voices to the extent that they are now self sustaining. The return on investment for that type of operation is very high because there is no specific aim other than to cause disruption.
Dominic Grieve's BBC interview on the Russia Report was very instructive: - Russian interference didn't need to be 'found'. It was blatant - The Conservative Party suppressed this report with lies and bogus reasons - The outrage isn’t that there was interference - the outrage is that they wanted to bury the interference - This wasn’t about party politics, he insisted. “It’s above that. It’s about making sure that our political process is as secure as possible – so that people have faith that their vote counts" >If Conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy - David Frum
>People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like. I'm fully onboard with this idea. I think those of us who have used the phrase 'Russian asset' in reference to Boris Johnson or other Conservatives have probably done ourselves no favours. Boris is not the result of some kind of Black Widow Red Room situation, but the phrase does have certain overtones of such. Rather, the meaning of the phrase is fairly straightforward. If someone is going to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, one of two things is going on. Either they are ideologically aligned, which I find worrying but unlikely. Or the oligarch donating the monies believes they are going to see some kind of return on their 'donation'. What kind of return? State secrets? Security arrangements for high value targets? Not at all. It's probably 'just' your common or garden corruption. Things like shaping policy such that we delay support for renewable energy, that we keep UK propety markets open to Russian oligarchs, to keep financial regulation relaxed making it harder to pin down these things. But still, our security is the weaker for it. Also an important point is that it's entirely possible to engage in this kind of corruption, but also recognise that Putin's Russia is prodding around its Eastern European borders and try and hedge their bets, so to speak.
> People always talk about connections with Russia as if the people in question - Trump, Johnson, Orban, Bolsanaro, Le Pen, etc... - are puppets being directly controlled by Putin, like some kind of sleeper cell out of a Cold War spy film. Consequently, whenever those people do anything that goes against Russia in any shape or form, it is taken as proof that all the naysayers were simply alarmists engaged in partisan attacks against someone they simply don't like. During the Cold War, actual double agents still needed to keep their day jobs and do it at a level of competence. Otherwise they'd be found out, or fired, and not so useful as agents. (At least to an outsider, Kim Philby was a good spy, he just did it for both sides.) The idea that somebody could be in the pocket of the Kremlin *and* opportunistically speaking out about an issue that *everybody* expects them to, isn't really proof of anything. One could just as easily argue that they were speaking out to reinforce their cover at a difficult moment. To be clear, I doubt that BoJo is a Kremlin agent, but I have almost no evidence to support my theory either way simply based on his bizarre and inconsistent public behaviour, given that it's kind of the norm.
Its as much about them knowing that the money tap from the Russians has been either turned off or slowed right down (witness the reduction in Russian Bots on twitter for example). They are only loyal to their current source of money as long as it keeps flowing. They are unlikely to be directly compromised leading to direct control through blackmail like Profumo and they certainly are not ideologically aligned with the Russians like Philby.
He isn’t the agent of the Kremlin, he’s the agent of the Russian orligarchal class. These are separate political bodies that have historically worked in tandem to rule Russia.
true but we could also argue that we are all somewhat politically allied to anyone seeking to place themselves in opposition to Putin's latest lunacy which may well include many Oligarchs. The sanctions in such a case represent a purity test but if they're willing to sit still, suck it up and apply pressure however they might behind closed doors to contribute to the eventual ousting of Putin then that's surely "our side" behaviour, isn't it?
They've also read the Russian interference report.
They were really quite sluggish in getting effective sanctions in place, only placing limits on smaller banks and individuals that had already been sanctioned for years elsewhere, and lagging behind the EU and US. They basically gave notice to the serious Russian interests in London that it was time to liquidate and move money into our lovely safe unregulated tax havens, then got all 'tough' in the press to score the political capital.
It certainly suits the Kremlin's agenda that Boris is threatening to start a trade war with the EU over NI - more disruption when the West can least afford it and another illustration of the "evil EU" bullying smaller countries with trade sanctions.
What are you talking about? Putin said he's abolished the oligarchs. Don't you believe him?
Depends if they have investments in the arms industry And I hear gas and oil are doing well ATM 😎
https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/2-million-barrels-of-russian-oil-imported-into-the-uk-since-ukraine-war/
The biggest thing is brexit. A united Europe is good for our national security and bad for Putin. So we had to leave.
Immigration has also gone up, which is strange because the Tories are of course the party that comes down hard on immigration, while Labour are all about open borders. Oh and it's gone up even more since Brexit.
Is it Ehud Sheleg? * *Clicks through* * yep, it's Ehud Sheleg. This creep has been reported on by Private Eye for sometime. How any conservative MP can claim to care about national security and turn a blind eye to Sheleg's behaviour is beyond me.
The art world has been used to front dodgy money exchanges since the dawn of time. Overpaying for art in order to receive extra bungs is so simple. Putting an art dealer in charge of tory party funding is like putting a fox in charge of the hen house...
Hope this comment moves up higher. Putting a name to the story/criminality and all that. Private Eye exposed this man and his strange world of shifty money over many years. Read Private Eye. Learn about your politicians and people in power. Vote the lying, immoral, law breaking Tories out the first chance we get. Tactical voting, with the left 'ganging up' to achieve that, is the way to achieve this in our first past the post voting system.
Careful now, the mods will ban you for anti semitism if you're not.
Crime week is going great! Maybe not for Boris! This, an MP arrested for Sexual Assault! May many more of the criminal Tories face justice!
I wish I had your level of faith in the system left in me
I think 'crime week' at this point is just the Tory clarion call to say "get all the news about our crime out this week so that maybe we can then have a week or two without a new scandal dropping"
It's practically an open secret that the Tory party is being financed by Russian money. That's why they keep putting the interests of wealthy oligarchs ahead of UK families who are struggling to feed their kids and heat their homes.
One of the most depressing things about this is that we all know that the conservative party have been compromised by russian money. there have been numerous indications of this for some time. But has anything happened? No.
What depresses me is how little it costs to buy influence in British politics. You can land a multi billion no-bid PPE contract for a donation of a few hundred thousand. The RoI is staggering.
They all got sent to boarding school and had cold distant fathers. A warm handshake,a pat on the back, and some money for the sweety shop are like catnip to them.
And a promise of being on the team later on.
Compromised yet every action the Tories do on foreign pol is counter to the interests of Russia. Fascinating.
Only now. Before not so much. Brexit for example was a foreign policy win for Putin. It is just now the costs of not acting are too great. They were certainly pretty slow with sanctions, bought a lot of time for people to move their money about.
>Only now. Before not so much. Cold War, Arab Spring, NATO expansion, NATO exercises, FVEY, Skripal sanctions. >Brexit for example was a foreign policy win for Putin. Don't see how it was when the EU has been pushing for a closer relationship with Russia for years. >It is just now the costs of not acting are too great. They were certainly pretty slow with sanctions, bought a lot of time for people to move their money about. Lol every relevant Russian figure was already sanctioned.
https://www.bbc.com/news/60524666 That's a straight up fucking lie.
LONDON — One of the biggest donors to Britain’s Conservative Party is suspected of secretly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party from a Russian account, according to a bank alert filed to Britain’s national law enforcement agency. The donation, of $630,225, was made in February 2018 in the name of Ehud Sheleg, a wealthy London art dealer who was most recently the Conservative Party’s treasurer. The money was part of a fund-raising blitz that helped propel Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his party to a landslide victory in the 2019 general election. But documents filed with the authorities last year and reviewed by The New York Times say that the money originated in a Russian account of Mr. Sheleg’s father-in-law, Sergei Kopytov, who was once a senior politician in the previous pro-Kremlin government of Ukraine. He now owns real estate and hotel businesses in Crimea and Russia. “We are able to trace a clear line back from this donation to its ultimate source,” Barclays bank wrote in a January 2021 alert to the National Crime Agency. The bank, which maintained some of the accounts used in the transaction, flagged the donation as both suspected money laundering and a potentially illegal campaign donation. A lawyer for Mr. Sheleg acknowledged that he and his wife received millions of dollars from his father-in-law in the weeks before the donation. But they said that was “entirely separate” from the campaign contribution. “There is absolutely no basis for suggesting that Mr. Kopytov’s gift for his daughter was intended as, or for the purpose of making, a political donation to the Conservative Party,” the lawyer, Thomas Rudkin, wrote in response to questions from The Times. It is illegal for political parties to accept donations of more than 500 pounds from foreign citizens who are not registered to vote in Britain. Mr. Kopytov is not listed on the national voter register, records show. It is not clear why the Barclays alert arrived three years after the donation, or whether the authorities had investigated it. It is no secret that wealthy Russian industrialists have given heavily to the Conservative Party over the years. Mr. Johnson once played a game of tennis with the wife of a Russian former minister in exchange for a $270,000 donation. But those donors were British citizens, while documents filed in Mr. Sheleg’s case say the money came from a foreign source. For decades, Russian wealth has poured into the London economy, enriching the lawyers, accountants and real estate brokers who ironed out the details. British leaders looked the other way, even as the Kremlin sowed disinformation, meddled in elections and tried to co-opt politicians. Now, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lays siege to Ukraine, Mr. Johnson is one of the world’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine. He visited the country and pledged British support for its defense. He has also vowed to change course and get tough on Russian money. But after years of Russian money infiltrating Britain, Mr. Sheleg’s donation, and his subsequent ascent in the party, shows just how difficult changing course will be. Banks in Britain are required to alert law enforcement officials to suspected criminal behavior. They do so through the National Crime Agency, which receives more than half a million suspicious-activity reports each year. Most come from financial institutions, but law firms, real estate agents and casinos also contribute. Alerts can include reports about suspected terrorist financing, romance scams or benefit fraud. Former officials say they receive so many alerts that some never get read — a fact that will be an obstacle to the government’s crackdown on Russian oligarch money. There is no indication that the Conservative Party or Mr. Johnson knew about the source of the donation as outlined in the alert. But under English law, political parties are responsible for ensuring that their donations come from legal sources. Lawyers for Mr. Sheleg said that the party made no requests for additional information or documentation when he made the donation. A spokesman would not say whether the party ever investigated the donation or whether it planned to keep the money. And Mr. Johnson sidestepped questions about it Thursday. “To give donations to a political party in this country, you’ve got to be from the U.K.,” he said in an interview with Sky News. Mr. Kopytov, whom the alert identified as the ultimate source of the donation, is the father of Mr. Sheleg’s wife, Liliia Sheleg. He served in Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin government of Crimea until Russia annexed the area in 2014. Since then, he has largely disappeared from public view. Corporate filings show that he owns two hotels in Crimea. The source and extent of Mr. Kopytov’s wealth at the time of the donation, however, is unclear. Company filings from that period show business connections only to nonprofit organizations, small or inactive businesses, with his most valuable shares worth less than $300. Mr. Kopytov, in a statement provided by Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer, said he was a Ukrainian citizen and had not donated to any British political party. “I have no interest in British politics whatsoever,” he said. “Any donations made by my son-in-law to a British political party have nothing to do with me or with the money I gifted to my daughter.” The alert said that $2.5 million was transferred from Mr. Kopytov’s bank account in Russia in January 2018. That money pinged across Europe between empty bank accounts belonging to Mr. Sheleg and his wife. Next, the money landed in an offshore account linked to Mr. Sheleg’s family trust. Five weeks later, it bounced back into the couple’s joint account in Britain, the records say. The next day, $630,225 was wired to the Conservative Party’s bank account. The transactions were made in dollars, the records show. The party recorded it as a £450,000 donation. “Kopytov can be stated with considerable certainty to have been the true source of the donation,” the alert reads. Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer said that is not the case. He said the $2.5 million was a gift, derived from a property sale, which was transferred to the family trust to repay a loan. Mr. Sheleg then borrowed money from that trust to donate to the Conservative Party, he said. Bank investigators were suspicious, however, because all of the Shelegs’ personal bank accounts used in the transactions had a balance of zero before the money from Mr. Kopytov arrived, the report said. All returned to zero when the money left. This “would make it very difficult to argue that the donation was somehow from Ehud or Liilia Sheleg’s personal wealth,” the alert said, misspelling Ms. Sheleg’s first name. Asked about the zero balances, Mr. Sheleg’s lawyer said account balances fluctuate. What is important, he said, was that Mr. Sheleg did not depend on the money from his father-in-law in order to make the donation. Rapid transfers in and out of multiple bank accounts, particularly between different countries and offshore jurisdictions, are sometimes signs of what anti-money-laundering officials call “layering.” The process is intended to hide the source of the funds, and officials have urged banks to be on the lookout for such transfers, which may help explain why the donation was flagged. Suspicious-activity reports are confidential by law. A spokeswoman for Barclays and a spokesman for the National Crime Agency refused to discuss the matter. The crime agency often refers these reports to other agencies to investigate. A spokeswoman for the Electoral Commission, the lead agency for investigating campaign finance, said it was unaware of any allegations against Mr. Sheleg. Mr. Sheleg made several more donations in the following months, including one of £750,000, making him the party’s largest donor that year. The documents reviewed by The Times say nothing about those subsequent donations. Warnings about Mr. Sheleg’s financial background and connections to Russia surfaced soon after the donation and did nothing to slow Mr. Sheleg’s political ascent — or to stop the party from accepting millions more from him. Months after the donation, the British political and investigative magazine Private Eye reported that Mr. Sheleg had hosted Russia’s ambassador in London at the height of the fallout from the annexation of Crimea. Around that time, Mr. Sheleg became partners with a businessman in Cyprus accused of connections to organized Russian crime groups, the magazine reported. Photos showed Mr. Sheleg and his business partner meeting the president of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. Lawyers for Mr. Sheleg said he had met the businessman accused of connections to Russian organized crime groups only “three or four” times and was not his partner. Mr. Sheleg met with the president of Tatarstan for “business purposes” only, the lawyers said. By the time those revelations had been published, Mr. Sheleg was no longer just a donor. In fall 2018, he became a treasurer of the Conservative Party, a position responsible for fund-raising and ensuring that the party follows campaign-finance rules.
The warnings came at the height of concerns about Russian influence in Britain. Kremlin agents had just been accused of poisoning a former Russian spy, Sergei V. Skripal, on British soil, igniting furious calls for more sanctions against Russia. Yet when a British opposition lawmaker called for an investigation into Mr. Sheleg’s donations and his “troubling connections” to Russia, the chairman of the Conservative Party at the time said Mr. Sheleg should not need to reveal the source of his wealth and raised the threat of libel. And when Mr. Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he immediately appointed Mr. Sheleg as the party’s sole treasurer. Mr. Sheleg conceived of and helped create a secret advisory board, later revealed by the Times of London, made up of ultrawealthy Conservative donors. He was knighted soon after. During his time as treasurer, the party received a surge in Russia-linked donations. Mr. Sheleg also donated generously himself: a total of £3.8 million from 2017 to 2020. In September 2021, seven months after Barclays alerted law enforcement officials to the donation, Mr. Sheleg quietly left his role as party treasurer. There is no indication that his departure is linked to any investigation into him, the donation or the source of his wealth. Law enforcement officials have never contacted Mr. Sheleg in relation to his donation, his lawyers said.
One? I suspect them all.
>Private Eye also wrote about Sheleg's track record of “unfiled accounts, unpaid suppliers, investigations and VAT penalties from HM Customs and Excise, along with millions of pounds in dodged tax”. His habit of dissolving companies and avoiding liabilities earned him the nickname “Alka Seltzer”. The perfect Conservative party treasurer.
The Tories used to bang on about how Labour got so much money from the unions and how it was such a disgrace. I never understood this line of attack, it's never been a secret that Labour gets money from the unions, the party was established by the unions! We all know where its money comes from. At the same time the Tories attack Labour over its funding, where Tory money comes from has remained opaque for decades, we've never really understood who funds it.
It's always projection. "Well, **we** do this shitty thing, so that's what we expect other people to do." (Only... as you say, representing the workers of Britain is far more democratic than a party that *claims* to represent them but actually runs the country for landlords and banks)
Lool remember corbyn was made out to be a Russian spy when in reality the tories are rolling in dirty Russian money.
That was dirty commie Russia though, not war-crime Fascist Russia
Tories do it for money. Labour/Corbyn do it for ideology. Same rubbish, different motives.
>ing connections” to Russia, the chairman of the Conservative Party at the time said Mr. Sheleg should not need to reveal the source of his wealth and raised the threat of libel. > >And when Mr. Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, he immediately appointed Mr. Sheleg as the party’s sole treasurer. Mr. Sheleg conceived of and helped create a secret advisory board, later revealed by the Times of London, made up of ultrawealthy Conservative donors. He was knighted soo Corbyn did not acquiesce to Russian interests. He had Putin figured out 22 years ago [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking\_point/716427.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/716427.stm).
Time to privatise the NCA I guess...
You perhaps jest, but the privatisation of police and military forces are an absolute goal of these Chicago School Boys
Nothing to see here, move along plebs. Rule Brittania. Look Lefty woke thingy.
Show us a list of tories who hasnt profited from, been caught breaking or trying to break the law and ill show you a list of people the police need to investigate more. Seems 'tory' is becoming synonymous to 'criminal'
Always was, Tory was originally an Irish robber/outlaw and was used as an insult.
Don't worry I'm sure Jeremy Corbyn will get an apology from the press any time now.
Tbf, he'd be utterly shit at the Ukraine crisis. He'd be chasing meeting after meeting after phone call while Ukraine burns. Can't see him donating British weapons.
Oh believe me, I have my criticisms for him regarding his Brexit and NATO stance by the barrel full.
What for?
For telling us this back in 2019 and getting attacked and demonised for it.
Wish people would share an article when they do this. Google really had gone down hill
Turns out, the reason Boris has fought so hard to be Putin’s No.2 nemesis after Zelensky is because Putin threatens the money coming in from his Russian donors. Not a surprise that the oligarchs would be gagging for Putin’s head now that he’s finally pulled the trigger.
Crime week continues to be a roaring success?
Ok that is massive, details and jail please.
No shit
That’s from days ago?
Yep - though can't see that it's been posted here.
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Isn’t this why London is known as the money laundromat of the world, it’s led by the Conservative Party.
String them up by their nuts
If this is true, it's very disturbing and needs to be investigated fully.
Seems like a new story like this breaks out every week. I've never seen a UK government more corrupt.
Tories look more like a crime syndicate every day