The Johnson Affair | A former KGB officer, the foreign secretary, and an Italian palazzo in the wake of the Skripal poisonings – the meeting that may come to define Boris Johnson’s political career

4 comments

  1. Why is the focus on the Skripal poisonings and not on the £millions funnelled via the DUP to fund Brexit?

    Boris was quite vocal about the benefits of remain until Russia delivered him a truck full of cash.

  2. [Archived, in case of paywall](https://archive.ph/mh74u).

    The article examines the “unprecedented” meeting between Foreign Secretary Johnson and Alexander Lebedev, in early 2018.

    Overtaking this article, though, author Paul Caruana Galizia is quoted a few times on a [recent video from the BBC’s Ros Atkins](https://twitter.com/BBCRosAtkins/status/1547462978416648192):

    > The implications are huge, I think. It’s really irregular, really unusual for a Foreign Secretary to attend a meeting like that without the proper protocols in place and there are really serious national security implications.

    and then, towards the end of the video:

    > **He went there expressly to discuss the Skripal case with Alexander Lebedev.**

    > We have it from three people who were each in their own way connected to the Foreign Office.

    > We know that he, in the past, before this meeting, floated the idea with his officials at the Foreign Office of using Alexander Lebedev as an intermediary between himself as Foreign Secretary and the Russian Government.

    Non-denials of this from No10 follow: “Russia poison bad! Save Ukraine! Social hospitality declaration! Written answer in post!”

    Caruana-Galizia has also released a podcast: [*Londongrad, the Johnson Affair*](https://www.tortoisemedia.com/audio/londongrad-the-johnson-affair/?sig=QJV5tdSUHYe8zolNaK0rOGxHsDKAN7kkwQbVzs0hXfk) around the same time as this, with the same claims, and more. The link has a transcript, [roughly archived here](https://archive.ph/Sjvj8), in case.

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