An amendment to the National Security Bill would have obliged political parties to carry out due diligence on the true source of donations from companies and individuals.
UK elections remain vulnerable to interference from hostile states after the government opposed a move to enhance checks for political parties to disclose the sources of their political donations.
The stark warning came from campaign finance reformers after the Home Office said on June 22 that it would seek to remove a legislative proposal to impose up-to-date controls on political donations.
An amendment to the National Security Bill would have obliged political parties to carry out due diligence on the true source of donations from companies and individuals. The amendment was sponsored by three members of the House of Lords including the former director general of MI5, Jonathan Evans.
The amendment would’ve tackled a number of loopholes with regards to foreign donations. For example, a UK-registered company which draws on profits from abroad, can donate money to parties that they receive from foreign sources.
The warning from campaigners comes after Tory MP Julian Lewis, who heads the Intelligence and Security Committee in Parliament, said in a recent debate that the U.K. political class “has clearly welcomed Russian money” and “several members of the Russian elite with close links to Putin have been identified as being involved with political organisations in the U.K.”
Left Foot Forward has previously reported on how the likes of Lubov Chernukhin, the UK’s biggest female political donor ever and who is a wife of a former Putin Minister, has given more than £2 million to the Conservatives from 2012 to 2020.
Her husband Vladimir, served as Mr Putin’s deputy finance minister in the early 2000s.
In 2020, Ms Chernukhin’s lawyer said: “Mrs Chernukhin’s donations to the Conservative Party have never been tainted by Kremlin or any other influence.”
The Pandora Papers revealed that Mrs Chernukhin’s wealth comes from her husband.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which has reported on the issue quotes Susan Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, a U.K. policy advocacy group, as saying that the UK government’s refusal to impose further checks on political donations will no doubt cause alarm among allies.
Hawley told the ICIJ: “The British government’s abject failure to take decisive action on this issue will no doubt have concerned the U.K.’s allies and like-minded nations. In particular, they might be worried that — despite claims that ‘Londongrad is over’ — the U.K. still isn’t taking sufficient steps to counter the threat from hostile states seeking to influence the political systems of Western nations.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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