[28][2] These accusations were claimed by an anonymous "longtime colleague" to be a smear campaign allegedly spread by Symonds's political strategist, Lynton Crosby (subsequently denied by Crosby). Carrie Symonds has dismissed reports that she and Boris Johnson are getting rid of their pet dog Dilyn. The DCMS is the lead department for policing our digital frontier and Whittingdale is in charge of its international strategy. He learned espionage at the Red Banner Institute and joined the KGBs prestigious first directorate, specialising in foreign intelligence work. The couple have an 8m London mansion, owned by an offshore trust, a jet and two yachts. His then teenage son was educated at a leading British private school. The Tory peer received a bonus of $4m (3.14m) after helping Deripaska get the company removed from a list of firms hit by US sanctions. [57], In December 2021, Politico Europe named her as one of the "disrupters" in its annual list of 28 people who will shape Europe in the year to come. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations. And 31% of Republicans prefer close relations with Russia compared with 21% among Democrats. The Lib Dem leader of Portsmouth City Council, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, has denounced the exemption as appalling, saying that the companys links with Russia meant special care had to be taken. [17][18] Her paternal grandfather was John Beavan, Baron Ardwick (at one time editor of the Daily Herald and later, during the 1970s, a Labour Party MEP), and her paternal grandmother was Anne Symonds, a BBC World Service journalist. Russian Ambassador's planned meeting with UK MPs and peers in His communications firm, New Century Media, founded a Positive Russia foundation to improve Moscows image in the UK. They include Simone Finn, the deputy chief of staff, who hosted Symonds' 30th birthday party which was attended by the Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, and Johnson. [47] She was additionally involved in a political controversy over the refurbishment of the 11 Downing Street flat,[47] and her comments over the flat's decor being a "John Lewis furniture nightmare" (John Lewis typically being an aspirational, upper-middle-class shop) led to accusations of snobbery. Now called the Westminster Russia Forum (WRF), the groups British organisers often appear on the Russian state broadcaster, RT. The government has announced the closure of the Tier 1 golden visa scheme used by a number of oligarchs from Russian and former Soviet-bloc countries to relocate to Britain, as well as imposing sanctions against five Russian banks and three Russian oligarchs. Deripaska attracted public attention in 2008 over claims that he discussed making a donation to the Tories with George Osborne, during a meeting held aboard his yacht in the Mediterranean. There is powerful evidence that the Russian propaganda machine, openly by such vehicles as RT and Sputnik, and covertly through anonymous bots, have interfered with Britains democracy. Concerns have been raised that unregulated pro-Moscow lobbyists at the heart of Westminster are using their links to Tory MPs to gain influence and respectability. The Russian diplomat Udod is reported to be have been the handler of Russian spies in the UK. Super-wealthy businessmen from former Soviet countries also control a dizzying array of UK assets spanning football clubs, oil and gas and multimillion-pound mansions. He was subsequently photographed in the company of the then Foreign Secretary at a fundraising event in Reading. Now a British citizen and major donor to the Conservative Party to the tune of 1.3 million, Temerko was born in Soviet Ukraine and became head of a Russian state arms company before coming to the UK in 2011. [9][10][11][12] She was the first unmarried partner of a prime minister to reside at Downing Street. [citation needed], Nevertheless, on 23 November 2012, the group publicly attacked the then chairman of the All-party parliamentary group (APPG) on Russia, Labour MP Chris Bryant, through the publication of a press release featuring a 10-year old picture, extracted from a dating website, depicting the MP in underwear. According to CNN, the evidence of Bill Browder, the campaigner behind the anti-corruption Magnitsky Acts, suggests that Russias President, Vladimir Putin, has deployed Russians to infiltrate UK society and to conceal the underlying Russian controllers and their agendas. Firtashs closeness to the Kremlin, his association with Trump consigliere-turned-convict Paul Manafort and his arrest warrant issued by the FBI are facts that can be reported and cannot be denied. Is it possible that the minister has acted so recklessly that he could be embarrassed by the Russian secret state? [34] On 16 August 2019, she made her first public appearance since entering 10 Downing Street, when she addressed what she called the "gigantic" climate crisis. Carrie Johnson went on to become communications director for The Conservative Party aged 29, on a rumoured annual salary of 80,000. I feel so angry that he pleaded not guilty and made us go through the pain of giving evidence in court". Back in 2012, the Foreign Policy journal noted that the websites news feedcontinued to feature only state-owned or state-subsidised outlets. The campaigns director, Dominic Cummings, spent three years in Russia from 1994 to 1997. As Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee in the US, has said: From what weve seen, the parallels between the Russian intervention in Brexit and the Russian intervention in the Trump campaign appear to be extraordinary., Here is a summary of findings of Russian influence in Britain so far which Boris Johnson doesnt want you to see. [2], In 2009, Symonds joined the Conservative Party as a press officer. In 2014, he fired its editor, Galina Timchenko, after she published an interview with a Ukrainian nationalist. But his return to the frontbench might be explained by the fact that his one-time special advisor was Carrie Symonds, the Prime Ministers partner and mother of his fifth or sixth child. Another prominent figure is Andrei Borodin, the former president of the Bank of Moscow. David Cameron and then Evening Standard editor George Osborne were guests too. The Kremlins attempts tointervene continue. After Austrian police arrested Firtash on behalf of the FBI in March 2014 for his part in the alleged $18.5 million bribe scandal using Group DF to conceal bribe payments using threats and intimidation to further the goals of the criminal enterprise a multi-million-dollar titanium deal Whittingdale carried on as before, making one final trip to Kyiv and two visits to Vienna where Firtash is now based courtesy of the BUS. He has made a fortune of close to 1bn by founding dating apps, including the female-focused Bumble and Badoo. One of Londons most successful Russian businessmen is Andrey Andreev. Sign up to our newsletter (and get a free edition posted to you). Other donations have flowed to Brandon Lewis, the former Tory party chairman. In 2013, Borodin attended the Conservatives summer ball with his wife Tatiana Korsakova, a model, four months after receiving political asylum. [14][15][16], Caroline Louise Beavan Symonds was born on 17 March 1988 to Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent, and Josephine McAfee (ne Lawrence), a lawyer working for that newspaper. He says he wasnt thrown out of The Savoy but accepts a waiter did approach when she was kissing him after a customer complained., Whittingdale was the butt of Whitehall jokes. To return to Keir Starmers question, should Britain ban RT? Sergey Nalobin once jokingly described himself on Twitter as a brutal agent of the Putin dictatorship. He co-authored an anti-EU book with an aide, Pavel Stroilov, who had allegedly fled Russia with smuggled secret Soviet documents. It also subsidised its members to attend an event featuring international lawyers discussing the Pussy Riot incident, and hosted a debate on the US Presidential Election and its impact upon the relationship between the two countries. Nigel Farages former party UKIP has been a strong supporter of Russia for over a decade. openDemocracy this week revealed that more than 200 Russian millionaires had been given golden visas, despite an earlier government pledge to clamp down on the practice. The following month, she was barred from entering the United States as her visa application was rejected due to a previous visit with her close friend Nimco Ali to Somaliland, which the US considers to be part of immigration-restricted Somalia. The Israeli-Russian billionaire has limited UK business interests outside football, but his extensive property portfolio includes a 15-bedroom mansion in Londons prestigious Kensington Palace Gardens, bought for 90m in 2011. Event attendees have included Carrie Johnson, the Conservative Partys former head of communications and now the prime ministers wife. An investigation by Reuters, based on conversations with Temerko, alleges that he supported Johnsons campaign to take Britain out of the EU at least initially. Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) hernyshevsky distinguished himself as a publicist . What followed was at least four meetings with Banks and the ambassador, which opened the door to at least three potentially lucrative investment opportunities in Russian-owned gold and state diamond mines. Staines and his business partner, Jag Singh, who was active in Moscow during the 2011 election campaign, later worked for the Russian Embassy on political campaigning. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. [55] Writing in The Sunday Times, Marie Le Conte disagreed that such criticism is sexist. Lebedev later acquired the Independent and launched a successful spinoff version, the i. And we asked whether, given the 8,000 election money from Aquind came from an entity whose controlling party is unknown, he should repay that too. Bird, Steve; Sheridan, Danielle; Horton, Helena (3 May 2020). [53] Cummings later said in 2021 that Symonds acted "illegally" in awarding influential jobs to her friends, including press secretary Allegra Stratton. Another prominent associate of the group was Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the official Vote Leave campaign. When I go through it with him, he begins to bluster, saying she was a Page 3 model not a soft porn actress. It does indeed, most relevant given his various Russian connection. With MPs less likely to speak at the group in recent years, the WRF has turned its focus to working on public opinion. A new type of newspaper independent, fearless, outside the system. There are also slight partisan differences in the U.S. on the choice of a close relationship with Russia or Germany. John Whittingdale has for many years been a champion of Ukraine and one of the most outspoken MPs in defending Ukraine against Russian aggression.. A gangster with a conviction for firearms was also reportedly going out with King at the same time as Whittingdale and was trying to sell tapes of King talking about what she did with the then Culture Secretary. But we can't do it without you. However, an investment company run by a close colleague did take part in the privatisation of Alrosa diamond mines. As a Ukrainian living in the UK, I am a patriot and wished to assist my home country in a time of crisis. To complete the set, Firtashs charity front, the Firtash Foundation, had Jack Wakefield as a director for a time. 2. Their financial clout affords members of this select group considerable influence and access to Britains professional and ruling classes. Brian Latham reports on the intelligence leak that reveals the extent of Putin's plan to create a 'confederation' of friendly states across the Sahel through his proxy Prigozhin, Sam Bright reveals how the Russian Ambassador to the UK claimed the owner of the Independent and Evening Standard had much contributed to strengthening Russian-British relations, Mark Temnycky looks at the turbulence in Tbilisi, Georgians desire to join the EU, and the authoritarian drift of the ruling Dream Party, Sunak's warm welcome of the far right Italian Prime Minister exposes the increasingly authoritarian direction of his own Government, reports Adam Bienkov, Natalia Kogut and Maren Rohe explore the challenges Ukrainian refugees face accessing healthcare, housing and work under the Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme, We need a diverse media landscape that recognises the added responsibility of operating in a post-conflict society, writes Emma DeSouza, Byline Media Holdings Ltd, Byline Times &, Russia Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Tommy Robinson, Wagner in Africa: Russias Other Empire in the Making Bloodier than Ukraine, Georgian Government Drops Foreign Agents Bill, but the Fight Against Kremlin Influence Continues, Rishi Sunaks New Far-Right Ally and the International Authoritarian Elite, Stereotyped and Belittled: Ukrainians Suffer from UK Asylum Policy, Shifting Political Landscape on Island of Ireland Requires More Cross-Border Journalism. ", The statement concludes:"We are aware that to some our views on promoting dialogue may appear strange but we are committed to doing what we can to promoting grassroots understanding and peace.". Friends with the Russians Evgeny's father, Alexander Lebedev, was a KGB agent at the Russian embassy in London in the 1980s, later working for its successor agency, the FSB. no less than 17 times between 2010 and 2014. invited him to meet the Russian Ambassador too, gold consolidation deal was pursued for several months, reported to be have been the handler of Russian spies in the UK, Bannon, Brexit, Johnson and Cambridge Analytica: the Daughter of Time, Boris Johnson and Donald Trumps Private Talks on Privatising the NHS Reveal Denials were Untrue, Suella Braverman to Address Radical 'National Conservatism' Event With Ties to US Right, Stereotyped and Belittled: Ukrainians Suffer from UK Asylum Policy, Demonising Inflation and the True Cost of Living. Lubov Chernukhin (fourth from right, next to Theresa May) paid 135,000 to attend a dinner last year with senior female Conservatives at the Goring hotel in central London. In 2012, Burnside took a Russian embassy diplomat, Sergei Nalobin, to a Conservative party fundraising dinner. Think of the person behind the recent raft of Conservative animal welfare policies, and one name springs to mind - the Prime Minister's fiancee, Carrie Symonds.. The dam broke first with a piece by Nick Mutch on Byline.com, setting out Whittingdales non-registration of a trip with King to the MTV Awards in Amsterdam. February 29, 2020 at 3:56 p.m. EST. At no time did she give me any indication of her real occupation and I only discovered this when I was made aware that someone was trying to sell a story about me to tabloid newspapers. The Russian connections to Vote Leave go beyond its chief executive Matthew Elliott. Carrie Symonds' Number 10 role must be investigated, says - Express [39][40] In July 2021, she announced that they were expecting their second child together, also revealing that she had suffered a miscarriage earlier that year. The Conservatives have received more than 3m from wealthy Soviet-born donors all of whom can legally give money to the party as British citizens. He was chairman of Vnesheconombank (VEB), a bank and state corporation with reported close ties to the Kremlin security establishment. Since 2018 Aquind has donated 242,000 to the Conservatives, including the 8,000 to John Whittingdales election fund. [19][20], Symonds was the result of an affair between her parents, who were both married to other people at the time. Ask George Osborne, Craig Oliver or Carrie Symonds. ", "John Lewis: rich woman's nightmare, poor woman's dream", "How Cummings and Carrie Symonds vie for Johnson's attention", "Sorting through the shrapnel: what Dominic Cummings' grenade-ridden riposte means", "Carrie Symonds defended over 'sexist fabrication' that she tried to get minister fired", "Carrie Symonds 'tried to install friends in key roles', Dominic Cummings claims", "Samantha Cameron defends Carrie Symonds over 'Lady Macbeth' attacks", "Carrie Symonds is a serious political player so it's not sexist to ask 'What's her game? [3] The group's launch gained mixed reviews in the media from proponents and opponents of the conservatives, with some journalists questioning its neutrality.[4]. The 14 Tory ministers who have taken Russian-linked money Prior to . [60][61] After senior aide Ben Gascoigne threatened to resign if she was appointed, the proposal was dropped. Last October, Twitter closed down3,613 new Internet Research Agency accounts. [8] Nalobin invited the group to hold its launch party in August in the Kensington garden of the Russian ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko. Firtash and his entities deny any wrongdoing. The big source of Firtashs money has been his control of entities supplying Russian gas to Ukraine. The campaign included a letter signed by 32 Members of Parliament which was submitted to the Honours and Decorations (HD) Committee on Remembrance Day, requesting that the veterans be rewarded with a medal in recognition of the part they played in the vital Arctic Convoy missions throughout the Second World War.[12][13]. Greg Barker, a former Conservative minister, has worked for the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The forum originally launched as Conservative Friends of Russia in 2012, a political interest group for those with an interest in Russian politics, business, history and culture, with the aim of strengthening . According to the Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry last week, an official-level whistleblower has raised concerns about Cummings time in Russia, and questions about his relationships with figures in Russian politics, intelligence, and security as well as his relationship with Nalobins Conservative friends of Russia. He spent 40,000 on a portrait of Margaret Thatcher. A group trip to Moscowattracted controversy in 2012when it emerged that the Russian diplomat liaising with Conservative Friends of Russia was the son of a top-ranking Kremlin spy. In March 2014, Austrian authorities arrested Firtash on a multi-million bribery rap sought by the FBI. At previous such events, dozens of speakers have urged stronger ties to the Putin government. Whittingdale had been protected from scrutiny for a long time. Fund a better media. Mamut replaced her with a pro-Kremlin journalist. As the report states: The extent to which Russian expatriates are using their access to UK businesses and politicians to exert influence in the UK is ***. The committees asterisks cover a multitude of sins. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson married fiance Carrie Symonds in a scaled down ceremony in Westminster Chapel Saturday that was kept secret in advance. In 2014, Whittingale was photographed in Ukrainian fancy dress in London with Maria Tymofienko, who styled herself in emails as Assistant to John WhittingdaleMP Chair All-Party ParliamentaryGroup on Ukraine. It is high time that these groups were brought out of the shadows, adequately regulated and that the public can have far greater insight into how they operate and who is behind them.. But the woman known to . Russian authorities have accused him of a massive fraud. Whittingdale enjoyed 14,435 of free trips to Ukraine and Vienna paid for by the British Ukraine Society (BUS) which shared the same Knightsbridge address as the Firtash Foundation and the main Firtash entity, Group DF. While Yakovenko and Udod made overtures to UKIP and Nigel Farage, another expelled Russian diplomat, Sergei Nalobin, first secretary in the Russian Embassys political section, was reaching out to rebuild ties with the Conservative Party. Peter Jukes reports on more revelations about the transatlantic right-wing network, and why the Government is withholding key information on the former Prime Ministers role, The former Prime Minister feared his discussions with the US President about privatising the NHS would cause "mischief" if they became public, according to a new book, The Home Secretary is a keynote speaker at the conference, which has previously hosted Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, reports Karam Bales, Natalia Kogut and Maren Rohe explore the challenges Ukrainian refugees face accessing healthcare, housing and work under the Government's Homes for Ukraine scheme, Anthony Yates looks at Rishi Sunak's promises over inflation which might help him cynically suppress public pay demands but do nothing to address the roots of our economic malaise, Exclusive analysis by Byline Times uncovers the staggering amounts being paid by forces for public and employer liability claims, Byline Media Holdings Ltd, Byline Times &, indicted for election interference in the US, 3,613 new Internet Research Agency accounts.