Oleg Deripaska is at the root of the Tory Party dependency on Russian money. Deripaska, ironically now sanctioned by the British government, was originally targeted by the future Conservative chancellor George Osborne in 2008 when Osborne was partying on the Russian’s £80 million yacht moored in Corfu in Greece.
Old Etonian Nathan Rothschild has stated that Osborne used meetings with Oleg Deripaska to try and solicit a sizeable donation for the Tory Party. Yet, Deripaska was already seen as a dubious figure, his visa to the USA had been cancelled in 2007.
In 2012 in the English High Court, Deripaska was alleged to have ties to the Russian Mafia which had emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By then he was wanted for money laundering with an arrest warrant from Spain.
After this year’s Ukrainian invasion Deripaska’s house in Belgrave Square, which should have been frozen by sanctions, was taken over by squatters. The power of the Oligarchs over this government was shown graphically when, in the words of Sky News, rapidly following the takeover “The street ..(was) cordoned off with at least 10 police vehicles and more than 30 officers” were on the scene. How many Britons can get that many police and their vehicles so quickly when they need them?
Because of the slow and dilatory way the government applied sanctions to Deripaska, he had plenty of time to avoid any seizure. He now claims the Belgrave Square mansion no longer belongs to him but is in a family trust!
Son of another Oligarch, Baron Lebedev of Siberia,was given his peerage by Boris Johnson, for supporting him previously in two London Mayoral elections. Lebedev owns the London Standard newspaper. He also has a dog called Boris. He has trained Boris to sit up and beg, roll over and bark on command. Lebedev’s dog can also do tricks!
The influence of the Russians in the Brexit referendum has been debated but In 2018, Reuter reported that Vladimir Putin told the then Tory Prime Minister Theresa May that the U.K. should not hold a second referendum on Brexit, insisting Theresa May must “fulfil the will of the people”. So having a Brexit Referendum and splitting the U.K. from the EU was definitely Russian policy!
Yet when Boris Johnson became prime minister he was very reluctant to release a report on Russian influence in British politics. When it was, it was significantly redacted to protect Johnson’s Russian cronies or Tory donors.
How much effort and how much progress has been made by this Tory government in tracking down the assets of Vladimir Putin and his Oligarch cronies in Britain? Or are the links between the two too tangled and interwoven?
Andrew Milroy
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