Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy suggests the UK could be doing more to stop ‘dirty money’ flowing from Russia to London. Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy says the UK has led the way on sanctions against Russia following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, but he is concerned they are still not being implemented as effectively as possible.
“The problem now is the enforcement of those sanctions and that’s the area that I would look more closely at, if I’m privileged to serve, to ensure that there is proper coordination between both the Foreign Office and the Treasury,” he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg program.
“I remain concerned about the dirty money that continues to flow through London, I remain concerned about the failure to fully implement the Russia report following the interference in our elections, and I remain concerned about the failure to fully implement the work of our select committee,” Lammy said when asked if this meant that not enough was being done at the moment.
Also speaking on Sky News’ Trevor Phillips’ program, Lammy said: “Of course it’s important that we counter Russian aggression abroad and in Central Europe, but it’s also very important that we deal with Russian aggression at home. For months we have been calling on the government to implement the Russia report by our select committee on intelligence. There is no register of overseas property, there are 250,000 properties in London owned by overseas organizations, they have not dealt with the Computer Misuse Act, why? They changed the electoral law to allow unlimited donations to political parties, this is hard to understand. They have received nearly £5 million worth of donations from donors linked to Russia, they should give that money back.”
Lammy concluded: “We’ve been saying we need to deal with the dirty money circulating in London – London has become the laundering center of the world – and shamefully President [Joe] Biden has expressed concern that the sanctions regime we need is being jeopardized by the government’s refusal to deal with this dirty money problem.”
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