The Russian Report

We are not isolated Grandad and the EU will manage without us.

Would they really have wanted us to move closer to the US?
I doubt it.

lemongrove

I don’t need to defend it MaizieD ....it’s untrue.
Of course the Russians wanted Corbyn to win, it would have been wonderful for them to have a weak ditherer at the helm who has openly said he would never push the nuclear button and would always take Russia’s word for everything.
The wealthy Russians living here and making donations are the ones who are afraid of Putin.

I don't think that's entirely true. At least some of the people who donated to the Conservative Party are close to Putin. They might be afraid of displeasing him, but they'll do what he says to watch their own backs.

lemongrove

varian

Russia has interfered in our democracy as part of its plan to destabilise the West but fortunately Russian attempts to break up the UK in 2014 were unsuccessful.. Unfortunately they were successful in helping to rig the fraudulent referendum of 2016. .

Ridiculous bit of thinking here.
It didn’t affect the Scottish outcome but somehow it did affect the outcome of leaving the EU!
It didn’t affect either outcome in actuality, but Russian interference would have been in almost everything here in the UK just as it is in some other countries, it’s a direct link to them having a leader who was a KGB operative.
They would have certainly tried to do their best to interfere in the last GE to help Corbyn into power..but as we see, they weren’t successful in that either.

The Russia Report was written before the last general election.

So?

lemongrove

Oh MaizieD ......the innocence and naivety of your post regarding Corbyn and Russia!
How many times was he on the Russian tv channel....?
They viewed him as a useful idiot, an old Marxist who may help them if he got into number ten.
Remember him in Parliament at the time of the Salisbury poisonings? The only one who was visibly uncomfortable and saying that we should allow the Russians to have the material to test?Ye Gods!

The thought of Putin seeing Corbyn as an ally is laughable. Putin is no Marxist. He's a traditional nationalist and autocrat, who would do anything to strengthen Russia's position, which includes smearing China. He sees the EU as a political and economic threat and will do anything to destabilise it.

Putin is a canny and ruthless operator. You can see his agenda from examining the millions of known Russian troll/bot posts from before the referendum.

lemongrove

So?

As it was written before the last election , it doesn't report on any influence on the last election (unless Putin has a time machine, which I doubt).

I didn’t say it did growstuff ( the report say anything about the GE) I said ‘They would have certainly tried to do their best to interfere in the last GE, to help Corbyn into power etc’
They were my words, not from the report.

It doesn’t matter that Putin isn’t a Marxist, he would want Corbyn in power because ....A)Corbyn doesn’t like the US
B ) Corbyn doesn’t like the EU C) Corbyn is lax about security and has openly stated he wouldn’t ever go down the nuclear route ( not that we want to but it’s a deterrent...a big one) and last but not least D) Corbyn would be a willing stooge for the Kremlin.

Can anyone please explain to me the process of "dirty money" ?
I know everybody is mentioning London as being the "Laundromat" and that masses of illegal money is used to buy Property or football clubs or department stores and suchlike.
But surely when the payment for these commodities arrives here it has to be "clean" money....checked etc.
If we pay over a certain amount into the bank in cash, we have to account for the source.
I have never understood money laundering and how it is done.
Can somebody enlighten me?

lemongrove

It doesn’t matter that Putin isn’t a Marxist, he would want Corbyn in power because ....A)Corbyn doesn’t like the US
B ) Corbyn doesn’t like the EU C) Corbyn is lax about security and has openly stated he wouldn’t ever go down the nuclear route ( not that we want to but it’s a deterrent...a big one) and last but not least D) Corbyn would be a willing stooge for the Kremlin.

I take it that this is all opinion lemon and you don’t have a Russia report dedicated to Corbyn????

One of the Tories many Russian friends

I expect there are intelligence reports ( dossier) on Corbyn, and have been for years, in MI5 headquarters.?

lemongrove

I expect there are intelligence reports ( dossier) on Corbyn, and have been for years, in MI5 headquarters.?

Definitely MI6 and MI5 dossiers about the colluding Tories

If you say so Whitewave ?

Harry Ferguson, former MI6 spy on Sky News - In the 60s, 70s, 80s the Russians tried to gain a way in to the UK through the left wing and the unions. However in recent years the way into the UK is through money, (of which they have a lot) and oddly enough that gets them into the right wing of the UK political spectrum.

Doubt Corbyn could have been bought so easily, you may not like him, but there is no doubt the man is principled.

He would have been bought with words and ideology I expect rather than money, although who knows.....if the Russians had wanted to donate to the Labour Party he wouldn’t have objected I bet.

Lemongrove hmm, yes, maybe the words and ideology; not so sure about the donation though. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and I am sure he knows that!

I see Johnson Snr wants a brexit re-run because of “the obvious Russian meddling”

Speaking as someone with inside knowledge I assume.

It must be an interesting conversation around the dining table when the Johnson family get together.

Johnson’s brother resigned from the government because he disagrees profoundly with Boris Johnson.

Rachel Johnson also thinks Johnson is profoundly wrong.

And now Johnson Snr.

Curlywhirly posted "Doubt Corbyn could have been bought so easily, you may not like him, but there is no doubt the man is principled."

I agree that is probably true but nevertheless Corbyn did play apart in getting us all in the mess we are in.

From an early age he admired the USSR. He wasn't called "comrade Corbyn" for nothing. Somehow, he never seemed to notice that the USSR fell apart in the early 1990s and does not seem to understand that Russia has moved to the exteme right and is, under Putin, no longer a communist country, but a de-facto dictatorship.

He was a big fan of Russia Today and often appeared as a guest and apparently was paid for doing so. Russia's aim was to de-stabilise the West and hence its attack on the EU and support for brexit, which Corbyn could not bring himself to condemn. Even as late as the Salisbury poisonings, he still seemed reluctant to point the finger at Russia.

If I was being charitable I might excuse this on the basis that Corbyn never seemed very bright, his ingrained admiration of all things Russian just got in the way of his understanding how much had changed. If I was being uncharitable I mught suspect more sinister motives. Either way he has done a lot of harm to the Labour Party and the country.

Even as late as the Salisbury poisonings, he still seemed reluctant to point the finger at Russia.

Hansard 26 March 2018

Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)

We must start with the events in Salisbury. What happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4 March was an outrageous act committed with callous indifference towards the wider community in Salisbury, including those brave police officers who had to respond to and investigate the incident. Our first thoughts must remain with Mr Skripal and his daughter as they continue to fight for their lives in an NHS hospital, and with Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey as he continues his recovery.

Based on the analysis conducted by Government scientists, there can be little doubt that the nerve agent used in this attack was military-grade Novichok of a type manufactured by Russia. Since that analysis was revealed by the Prime Minister two weeks ago, the Russian ​state has had every opportunity to offer a plausible explanation as to how a nerve agent stock of this type came to be used in this attack. It has offered nothing concrete in response except denials and diversion. Indeed, the only solid assertion that it has offered so far in its defence was that all stocks of nerve agents were destroyed many years ago—an assertion that has been contradicted by intelligence reports. That suggests that just over a decade ago Russia invested in the use of nerve agents and developed new stockpiles of Novichok to that end. There is clear evidence that the Russian state has a case to answer, and it has failed to do so. We can therefore draw no other conclusion than that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this.

We have supported actions taken. We have also condemned the Russian Government for including in their tit-for-tat retaliation a totally unnecessary and counterproductive decision to close the British Council offices in Russia which have done so much to promote better understanding and closer relationships between our two countries. It is a matter of deep regret to all of us that on issue after issue, and not of our making, UK-Russian relations now stand at such a low ebb.

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-03-26/debates/B5EF4CEE-D0E9-4613-81C4-DDD9F03015EE/NationalSecurityAndRussia?highlight=skripal#contribution-95D7F1BD-2FCD-4BF4-90DF-8A49EE6BBFA6

But Corbyn did support Russia's request for samples of the poison, which does seem disingenuous.

I suspect it was an effort to be fair minded.

Starmer would not have ignored the threat from russia, neither is his nose in the trough.

“I spent five years as Director of Public Prosecutions working on live operations with the security intelligence services.

I'm not going to take lectures from a Prime Minister, who sat on an Intelligence and Security Committee report for ten months, on national security.“