The Conservative Party is facing calls to review a £1.7m donation linked to a major energy project currently on hold due to “serious” national security concerns.
Concerns have been raised over plans to transmit electricity across the English Channel, run by a company called Aquindo Interconnector.
Aquindo is run and owned entirely by people with historical ties to Russia, including one director who previously worked for the Russian Ministry of Defense. They have been major donors to the Conservative Party, Conservative MPs and Conservative Party fundraising clubs since 2012.
The Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) announced in January a £1.2 billion plan to run a high-voltage DC cable from Labdeen, near Portsmouth, across the Channel to Barnabas in Normandy, after the Ministry of Defense (MoD) intervened. was temporarily suspended. Address any “concerns” you have about the project.
In a letter to DESNZ’s head of energy infrastructure planning, David Wagstaff, on March 7, the Ministry of Defense said there were “serious national security concerns” about the project and set a deadline for further evidence. requested an extension of six weeks. Mr. Aquindo strongly refutes claims that there are national security concerns.
Labour’s campaign chairman Pat McFadden said: I If senior Tory ministers were concerned about the background of Aquindo’s directors and owners, he said the party should also investigate donations.
“Given that the Ministry of Defense has confirmed that the project has been postponed due to ‘serious’ national security concerns about the company, why have the Conservatives withdrawn £1.7m from the company and its co-owners in recent years? Did it accept donations, including £70,000 for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and tens of thousands of pounds for other individuals who held cabinet posts responsible for defense and security?
“No one should be in a position to be warned about companies’ access to British infrastructure, but no one will say anything about donations to the ruling party.”
Aquindo, part-owned by Russian oil and gas tycoon Viktor Fedotov, has donated £700,000 to Conservative MPs since the start of the Aquindo project, including between July 2019 and 2021. It includes £72,500 for Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt until February.
Mr Temerko and his son Vladimir have personally donated £749,000 to the Conservative Party. Mr Temerko Senior donated a further £450,000 through an oil and gas engineering company called Offshore Group Newcastle, of which he was a former director.
Mr Temerko Senior has met and been photographed with every Conservative prime minister since David Cameron.
about him A personal website where he posts his photos At the Conservative party conference in Manchester last October, he met with Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, as well as Rishi Sunak.
The gallery also includes photos of Mr Temerko with a number of MPs to whom he has donated, as well as photos of Mr Temerko on several occasions when he visited No. 10 Downing Street.
Other prominent Conservative MPs who have received donations from companies and their directors include former Planning Secretary Brandon Lewis, former Defense Secretary Liam Fox, former Defense Procurement Secretary Gutto Bebb, former Welsh Secretary Simon Hart and Including Alan Cairns.
The proposed £1.2 billion scheme would see a high-voltage direct current cable run from Labdean, near Portsmouth, across the Channel to Barnabas in Normandy.
Temerko has consistently been a strong political critic of President Putin and has regularly expressed opposition to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The MoD’s letter to DESNZ does not reveal the full extent of the ministry’s concerns about the power project, but it does note that the company’s historic links to Russia have drawn the attention of Defense Secretary Grant Shapps. I understand.
Ministry of Defense and intelligence sources, as well as two former defense secretaries, have also expressed concerns about the project.
One source said: “The people running Aquindo all have close historical ties to Russia. [the] Moscow Ministry of Defense. Whether they claim to be anti-Putin or not, this should raise red flags. ”
Asked about concerns over relations with Russia, another senior official within the Defense Ministry added: “We are looking at all the details you described.”
A spokeswoman for former defense secretary and current cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt said the project was against the “national interest” (Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP)
Former Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt also raised a third potential risk to national security if the project was given the green light.
The current leader of the House of Commons has warned that the plan will increase Britain’s dependence on France for electricity, which could be disrupted by disputes over post-Brexit fishing deals.
A spokesperson for Ms. Mordaunt told me: “We don’t want this plan and we don’t need it. The government has already turned it down once.
“If the cancellation is ultimately confirmed, it will be in Portsmouth’s and national interests.”
Another person familiar with Mordaunt’s views added: “Mr Penny completely shares the MoD’s concerns.”
A spokesperson for Aquindo and its executives denounced the MoD’s concerns as “racist and xenophobic.”
“We will never respond to racist and xenophobic accusations based on such childish conspiracy theories,” he said. Alexander Temerko, Viktor Fedotov and other directors of Aquindo are British nationals.
“The circumstances described as to the impact of these allegations on the D.C.O. [Development Consent Order] The process is a complete lie and has nothing to do with reality. We do not believe that our Conservative friends MP Penny Mordaunt and Suella Braverman would ever condone such foolish xenophobic and racist comments. ”
A Conservative Party spokesperson said: “Donations to the Conservative Party are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, publicly disclosed by the Electoral Commission and fully comply with the law.”
All MPs who have received donations from companies or their directors have been contacted for comment.
Aquindo and Conservative donations
Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt receives more donations from Mr Aquindo than any other MP (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Mr Aquindo, his director Alexander Temerko and his former company Offshore Group Newcastle (OGP) have donated more than £1.7m to the Conservative Party and the party’s fundraising club, while 12 Conservatives He also gave cash to members of Congress.
The biggest beneficiary was Prime Minister Jeremy Hunt, who banked £72,500 from either Mr Aquindo or Mr Temerko between July 2019 and February 2021.
The first donation was made five days after Mr Hunt was sacked as foreign secretary by new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but the last was received eight months before he took up the top job at the Treasury.
Also high on the donor list is former minister Simon Clarke, who called for Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s resignation in January, and who has accepted £35,000 into his coffers from either Mr Aquindo or Mr Temerko since 2018. There is.
Brandon Lewis first received a £10,000 donation from Mr Temerko’s OGP in 2014 when he was local government minister, according to Electoral Commission data on political donations.
Mr Lewis has received a total of £28,000 in donations from Mr Aquindo, Mr OGP or Mr Temerko, but has accepted two further donations in 2016 while serving as Housing and Planning Secretary. This was the fourth time he received donations while he was a police and firefighter. He made his fifth and final donation in 2017 while serving as immigration minister.
Other donors on the donor list include former Defense Secretary Dr Liam Fox, former Welsh secretaries Simon Hart and Alan Cairns, and former Defense Procurement Minister Guto Bebb.
Conservative MPs who received donations from Akinde, OGP and Temerco
As the in-house writer for GallantCEO.com I prefer to remain anonymous as I do not seek anything from my writing only the self gratification of writing for a good cause such as this.
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