>In a long phone interview, Russian émigré Sergei Cristo told me that he first became familiar with embassy officials in the mid-2000s as the vice chairman of the Fastrack Donor Club, which was founded to raise money for the Conservative Party. This was before the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who fled to England, became a consult for British intelligence, and was murdered by poisoning from radioactive polonium in 2006. “I organized a Christmas party at the Russian Embassy where [now London mayor] Boris Johnson was a guest speaker. So from then on, there was some correspondence between the embassy and myself around that time, which they seem to have kept. I guess they saw me as useful as a Russian living in the UK involved with the Tory party.”
>
>According to Cristo, shortly after the United States’ June 2010 arrest and expulsion of an eleven-person Russian spy ring that had “gone American” over a ten-year period, Nalobin rang him up. “He said, ‘My predecessor recommended you to me. I’d like to meet up and chat about the Conservative Party and politics.’ I stalled. Since the Alexander Litvinenko murder, I had lots of concerns and took part in various campaigns, one against the BBC Russian Service, which had a few pro-Kremlin journalists on its payroll who were soft-pedaling [the news of] Sasha’s [Litvinenko’s] final hours in hospital.”
>
>Undeterred, a month or so later, Nalobin again phoned Cristo on his cell, requesting a face-to-face meeting that finally took place at the Carlton Club, a recherché salon for Tories since 1832, and was mainly confined to superficial chitchat. The most pressing question Nalobin asked was whether or not there really was a personal rivalry between David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
Take the European Research Group with you. And their financial backers.
Disband, rename. Whatever. These people aren’t going away any time soon.
Matthew elliot has been a cancer in British politics for a long time.
These people are dangerous to our country, they may disband but we need to limit their influence.
We need much more scrutiny and rules around all “Friends of” groups and APPGs in general. There’s so, so much dodgy shit happens in them.
And goes directly to the Tower of London as all traitors do to await justice.
So I wonder what name they will quietly reform under and continue to do the very same traitorous actions of selling out the UK to Russia
Running for the sewers without an ouce of culpability.
10 comments
[deleted]
> Another founding member of the group was Matthew Elliot, chief executive of the official Vote Leave campaign.
I for one am filled with surprise.
> The group launched at the Russian embassy in August 2012. Then minister John Whittingdale was the group’s honorary vice-president.
Yes, *that* [John Whittingdale](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ourbeeb/real-whittingdale-scandal-cover-up-by-press/).
> Whittingale was also one of six Cabinet ministers to favour Brexit during the 2016 EU referendum.
No kidding. He didn’t just “favour Brexit”, he [was part of Vote Leave](https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/14291296.witham-mp-priti-patel-and-maldon-mp-john-whittingdale-join-vote-leave-campaign-to-exit-eu/) as well.
Flashback article:
>[World Affairs: In Plain Sight: The Kremlin’s London Lobby](https://web.archive.org/web/20130313030126/http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/plain-sight-kremlin%E2%80%99s-london-lobby)
Snip:
>In a long phone interview, Russian émigré Sergei Cristo told me that he first became familiar with embassy officials in the mid-2000s as the vice chairman of the Fastrack Donor Club, which was founded to raise money for the Conservative Party. This was before the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB officer who fled to England, became a consult for British intelligence, and was murdered by poisoning from radioactive polonium in 2006. “I organized a Christmas party at the Russian Embassy where [now London mayor] Boris Johnson was a guest speaker. So from then on, there was some correspondence between the embassy and myself around that time, which they seem to have kept. I guess they saw me as useful as a Russian living in the UK involved with the Tory party.”
>
>According to Cristo, shortly after the United States’ June 2010 arrest and expulsion of an eleven-person Russian spy ring that had “gone American” over a ten-year period, Nalobin rang him up. “He said, ‘My predecessor recommended you to me. I’d like to meet up and chat about the Conservative Party and politics.’ I stalled. Since the Alexander Litvinenko murder, I had lots of concerns and took part in various campaigns, one against the BBC Russian Service, which had a few pro-Kremlin journalists on its payroll who were soft-pedaling [the news of] Sasha’s [Litvinenko’s] final hours in hospital.”
>
>Undeterred, a month or so later, Nalobin again phoned Cristo on his cell, requesting a face-to-face meeting that finally took place at the Carlton Club, a recherché salon for Tories since 1832, and was mainly confined to superficial chitchat. The most pressing question Nalobin asked was whether or not there really was a personal rivalry between David Cameron and Boris Johnson.
Take the European Research Group with you. And their financial backers.
Disband, rename. Whatever. These people aren’t going away any time soon.
Matthew elliot has been a cancer in British politics for a long time.
These people are dangerous to our country, they may disband but we need to limit their influence.
We need much more scrutiny and rules around all “Friends of” groups and APPGs in general. There’s so, so much dodgy shit happens in them.
And goes directly to the Tower of London as all traitors do to await justice.
So I wonder what name they will quietly reform under and continue to do the very same traitorous actions of selling out the UK to Russia
Running for the sewers without an ouce of culpability.