{"id":2792,"date":"2022-03-16T14:22:10","date_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worabia.com\/news\/top-trends\/2792\/"},"modified":"2022-03-16T14:22:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-16T14:22:10","slug":"labour-pushes-for-guarantees-over-lebedev-peerage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worabia.com\/news\/top-trends\/2792\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour pushes for guarantees over Lebedev peerage"},"content":{"rendered":"<div >\n<p ><b >Labor has asked for a guarantee that Boris Johnson did not interfere with the security services, to ensure that Evgeny Lebedev received a peerage in 2020.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >The Sunday Times claimed that the security services removed its warning that the Russian-born businessman posed a risk after the prime minister became involved. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Johnson has denied the report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >But on Prime Minister&#8217;s Questions, Angela Rayner asked for more assurances from the Deputy Prime Minister about the Prime Minister&#8217;s actions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Addressing Dominic Raab, who replaced Johnson during his visit to Saudi Arabia, he said: &#8220;There are no buts when it comes to the security of the British people.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >&#8220;So I am asking the deputy prime minister if he can guarantee that the prime minister never asked anyone to urge the security services to review, reconsider or withdraw their assessment of Lord Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Raab called the &#8220;suggestion&#8221; he was making &#8220;sheer nonsense&#8221; and defended the Conservatives&#8217; record on security issues. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Lord Lebedev has denied posing a &#8220;security risk&#8221; to the UK, writing an article in the Evening Standard newspaper &#8211; which he owns &#8211; saying: &#8220;I am not an agent of Russia&#8221; and that he was &#8220;proud to be a British citizen&#8221;. and I call Great Britain my home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >The son of billionaire Russian banker and former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, he moved to the UK as a child and condemned President Putin&#8217;s actions in his newspaper, writing: &#8220;I beg you to stop the Russians from killing your brothers and sisters. Ukrainians&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<div >\n<ul >\n<li>Gove: No one raised concerns about Lebedev&#8217;s safety with me<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m not a UK security risk, says Russian-born fellow<\/li>\n<li>Who are the Russian mega-rich facing sanctions?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Ms Rayner, who was standing in for Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer, pointed to media reports that British intelligence warned against awarding a peerage to Lord Lebedev on March 17, 2020. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >He then claimed that despite the concerns, the prime minister visited Lebedev at his home in London 48 hours later and then made the appointment in July. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >&#8220;The central duty of any government is to keep the British people safe,&#8221; he said. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >&#8220;There are now widespread reports that the prime minister did not take warnings from our own intelligence services, giving a Russian oligarch, the son and business partner of a KGB spy, a seat here in this Parliament.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >&#8220;It shouldn&#8217;t matter if that warning concerned a close personal friend of the Prime Minister, it shouldn&#8217;t matter if he gave the Prime Minister thousands of pounds in gifts, and it shouldn&#8217;t matter how much champagne and caviar he gave him.&#8221;  it serves&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Raab said it was up to the House of Lords Appointments Committee to vet prospective peers after they were nominated by the prime minister.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >But he said that the noble titles were granted &#8220;in recognition of what [someone&#8217;s] contribution is to society,&#8221; adding: &#8220;I must say that it includes those of Russian origin who contribute brilliantly to our nation, many of whom in this country are critical of the Putin regime.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >The deputy prime minister also attacked Labour&#8217;s record on security, singling out former party leader Jeremy Corbyn and his stance on the military and NATO. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >&#8220;A Labor government would put our security at risk,&#8221; he said.  &#8220;We are doing everything we can to protect it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Evgeny Lebedev is very well connected.  He owns the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers, is a friend of the Prime Minister and appointed George Osborne as editor of the Evening Standard after he left government. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Lord Lebedev was in the room when Boris Johnson and Michael Gove decided to back Brexit.  Johnson attended his party the day after he won a majority in the general election, and there are various reports that he attended other parties hosted by the Lebedev family. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >Lebedev has called for an end to the war in Ukraine.  Those who know him say he is more likely to talk about his favorite authors, Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoevsky, than about Russian politics.  He has British citizenship, owns businesses here and has a keen interest in the arts. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >However, his father, Alexander, is a former KGB spy.  He made huge amounts of money after the fall of the Soviet Union.  For some time, that has raised concerns among politicians in Westminster. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >The decision to grant Lord Lebedev a peerage was highly controversial.  The prime minister has faced questions about whether he stepped in to make sure it happened after security services reportedly raised concerns about him.  There have been calls for the Intelligence and Security committee, which has access to classified material, to investigate.  Labor has also urged the House of Lords Appointments Committee to publish details of the investigation process. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div >\n<p >But Lord Lebedev himself used his Evening Standard newspaper to respond last week.  He said he was a proud British citizen, adding: &#8220;I am not a security risk to this country, which I love. My father was a KGB foreign intelligence agent a long time ago, but I am not an agent of Russia.&#8221;  &#8220;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-60765665?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=KARANGA\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Labor has asked for a guarantee that Boris Johnson did not interfere with the security services, to ensure that Evgeny Lebedev received a peerage in 2020. The Sunday Times claimed that the security services removed its warning that the Russian-born businessman posed a risk after the prime minister became involved. Johnson has denied the report. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-trends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v17.9 (Yoast SEO v18.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Labour pushes for guarantees over Lebedev peerage - Worabia News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worabia.com\/news\/top-trends\/2792\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Labour pushes for guarantees over Lebedev peerage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Labor has asked for a guarantee that Boris Johnson did not interfere with the security services, to ensure that Evgeny Lebedev received a peerage in 2020. 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