Starmer: Russians hide cash in ‘soft touch’ UK
The “creeping tendrils of the Kremlin” have been allowed to wrap themselves around the UK and turn London into a global money laundering capital, Keir Starmer has said, as he accused successive Conservative governments of failing to act on the threat.
In an excoriating attack on the government’s stance on Russian influence within Britain, the Labour leader said that the UK needed to get “our own house in order” as it unites with the west to confront Vladimir Putin.
The warning comes as new figures obtained by the Observer show nearly 30,000 properties in England and Wales including mansions owned by the Russian elite are registered to companies and individuals based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Most of the owners are unknown after delays in a government pledge to end secret offshore ownership of property.
Writing in the Observer, Starmer says greater transparency, more powerful counter-espionage measures and new anti-corruption laws are required to combat money laundering in the UK. He said that Putin deployed illicit money and influence “as a judo move that turns the openness and freedom of western democracies into weaknesses”.
“Over almost 12 years of Tory government, the creeping tendrils of the Kremlin have been allowed to wrap themselves around the UK,” he writes. “A cottage industry has been created that directly and indirectly does the bidding of those linked to Putin.”
He said a new report by the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International had revealed how £1.5bn of UK property has been snapped up by Russians accused of corruption or linked to the Kremlin. “They are not buying here for the weather: they see us as a soft touch, where they can hide cash with few questions asked,” he writes.
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