radiofree.asia

Starmer labelled a ‘hypocrite’ over calls for Reform-Russia inquiry

Earlier this week, the ex-head of Reform Wales was sentenced to ten years in prison for taking bribes from pro-Russian backers. In the aftermath, Keir Starmer called for an ‘inquiry’ into Reform’s links to Russia. As it turns out, however, there are multiple problems with Starmer’s intervention:

From Russia, with cash

Reform’s ex Wales head Nathan Gill was paid £40,000 to talk glowingly about Russia in the European Parliament. Knowing this, it’s amazing to think he was a Brexiteer – clearly the EU was very lucrative for him.

In response to Gill’s conviction, Reform said:

Mr Gill’s actions were reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable.

We are glad that justice has been served and fully welcome the sentence Nathan Gill has received.

Among those who doubt Reform’s honesty is investigative reporter Carole Cadwalladr:

As noted in her tweet at the top, Cadwalladr has been involved in a case to force the UK government to investigate Russian interference. As the Citizens wrote in 2022:

A cross-party group of MPs and peers is going to the European Court of Human Rights to challenge the UK Government’s failure to investigate Russian interference in UK electoral processes. The landmark legal action has been launched in response to the government’s failure to act on the findings of the Russia Report, published by the Intelligence and Security Committee in July 2020, which reported credible evidence of attempts by Russia to interfere with the UK’s electoral processes.

The parliamentary group which is bringing the action includes Ben Bradshaw MP, Caroline Lucas MP, Alyn Smith MP, Lord Strasburger and Baroness Wheatcroft. They claim the government is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 3, Protocol 1) which requires regular, free, secret-ballot elections which “ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people”.

You may be thinking ‘why would Starmer call for an inquiry into Russian interference while fighting against launching an inquiry into Russian interference?‘

The answer is because he has no intention of launching an inquiry – a fact which he made clear in his own words.

Half measures from Starmer

As reported by Sky News:

Speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby at the G20 summit in South Africa, the prime minister said Nigel Farage “needs to launch an investigation into his party to understand how that happened”.

So there we have it.

Starmer suspects Russia has infiltrated the Reform Party, and his solution is for Reform to investigate itself.

Seriously?

Why stop there – why not commission Vladimir Putin to do it?

To be fair, Labour have elsewhere clarified that the investigation should be ‘independent’:


Again, though, it would be on Reform to arrange for such an inquiry.

The problem for Starmer is that when you’re talking about something as serious as potential treason – and you’re literally the government – it doesn’t look good to say ‘so maybe you guys should investigate if you’ve betrayed the country‘.

Sky News additionally reported that Starmer:

said a probe should also consider “what other links are there between Reform and Russia”.

“[Nigel Farage] needs to deal with this pro-Russian bribery. It’s not just a serious criminal offence, it undermines our country.

“It’s serious. The first duty of a prime minister, of a leader, is to keep our country safe. So, he needs to launch that investigation.”

In that last bit, he seems to have said ‘duty of a prime minister’ by accident – either because he didn’t want to suggest he should have any responsibility or because he forgot Farage isn’t running the country.

The Manchurian idiot

While it’s certainly worrying that senior British politicians have taken bribes to promote foreign powers, it’s arguably more worrying that we have politicians like Starmer who are breaking the country for free.

Featured image via Heute / Gage Skidmore (Flickr)

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.