Mar 7, 2022 06:02 AM
(This post was last modified: Mar 7, 2022 06:42 AM by C C.)
https://www.politico.eu/article/britain-...-oligarch/
INTRO: For years, Britain's Conservatives have promised to rid the country of dirty Russian money, but their own politics kept tripping them up.
With Russian troops now unleashing terror on Ukraine, the U.K. government is under pressure to show the world "Londongrad" is no longer a cozy place for dodgy billionaires to launder their money and their reputations via lavish properties and expensive schools for their children.
But while Boris Johnson's administration is keen to explain they have imposed sanctions against individuals and companies connected to Vladimir Putin and accelerated the Economic Crime Bill, intended to target money laundering, some within his own party worry the government has left it too late.
Previous stop-start attempts to grasp the problem were hindered, insiders say, by a commitment to an economy in which money could wash through unchecked — a stance that suited both the party's ideology and the need to buoy the British economy.
A key sticking point, one former No. 10 Downing Street adviser explained, is “this kind of Tory orthodoxy, which is also a Treasury orthodoxy, that the economy needs to be completely open.”
The Conservatives took a similar approach to their own finances, accepting donations from people who have ties to the Kremlin or made their millions in Russia and the former Soviet Union. While such gifts to the party were legitimate insofar as they had been properly declared, critics frequently drew lines between senior Tories and some pretty unsavory characters.
The politics driving the first two problems was then fueled by a divided political environment in which the legitimacy of the Brexit referendum was bitterly debated. Keen to push Brexit through, Johnson's electorally victorious Conservatives resisted any suggestion of undue Russian pressure on British political life and questions about dirty money were, once more, brushed aside... (MORE - missing details)
INTRO: For years, Britain's Conservatives have promised to rid the country of dirty Russian money, but their own politics kept tripping them up.
With Russian troops now unleashing terror on Ukraine, the U.K. government is under pressure to show the world "Londongrad" is no longer a cozy place for dodgy billionaires to launder their money and their reputations via lavish properties and expensive schools for their children.
But while Boris Johnson's administration is keen to explain they have imposed sanctions against individuals and companies connected to Vladimir Putin and accelerated the Economic Crime Bill, intended to target money laundering, some within his own party worry the government has left it too late.
Previous stop-start attempts to grasp the problem were hindered, insiders say, by a commitment to an economy in which money could wash through unchecked — a stance that suited both the party's ideology and the need to buoy the British economy.
A key sticking point, one former No. 10 Downing Street adviser explained, is “this kind of Tory orthodoxy, which is also a Treasury orthodoxy, that the economy needs to be completely open.”
The Conservatives took a similar approach to their own finances, accepting donations from people who have ties to the Kremlin or made their millions in Russia and the former Soviet Union. While such gifts to the party were legitimate insofar as they had been properly declared, critics frequently drew lines between senior Tories and some pretty unsavory characters.
The politics driving the first two problems was then fueled by a divided political environment in which the legitimacy of the Brexit referendum was bitterly debated. Keen to push Brexit through, Johnson's electorally victorious Conservatives resisted any suggestion of undue Russian pressure on British political life and questions about dirty money were, once more, brushed aside... (MORE - missing details)
