Corbyn’s spin doctor ‘peddled Russian propaganda’
JEREMY Corbyn’s spin doctor has been accused of peddling Russian propaganda in his former career as a Guardian journalist.
Conservative MP Bob Seely questioned whether Labour communications director Seumas Milne was an ‘active agent of influence’ for the Kremlin.
Mr Seely, who lived in the former Soviet Union for four years, said columns by Mr Milne for The Guardian had chilling echoes of Kremlin misinformation.
He said he did not know whether Mr Milne – who attended the £38,000-a-year Winchester College and read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford – simply shared Russian ideology or was ‘wittingly’ acting as an ‘agent of influence’ for Vladimir Putin.
Mr Seely vowed to challenge the Labour leader about his communications chief in Parliament. Writing in The Sunday Times, he said he was concerned that Mr Milne’s writings ‘appeared to dovetail uncomfortably closely with Russia’s agenda in Ukraine’.
The Tory MP for the Isle of Wight said four articles by Mr Milne, whose father was former BBC director-general Alasdair Milne, made the same ‘broad argument’ about Russia’s case for federalism in Ukraine.
He said Kremlin leaks had showed this was the key reason for Russian interference in the country. Mr Seely added: ‘The question is not whether Milne was sympathetic to the Kremlin’s agenda but whether he was – wittingly or not – a fellow traveller or an active agent of influence for the Kremlin.’
But a Labour source dismissed the reports, describing Mr Seely’s comments as ‘an absurd and baseless political smear’.
‘Mr Milne has repeatedly criticised the Russian government, describing Putin’s justifications for intervention in Ukraine as “legally and politically flaky” and argued that Putin’s “authoritarian conservatism” offers “little for Russia’s future”.
‘Conservative MPs should instead explain why Putin’s Government supported the Conservative Party in last year’s UK General Election, with the embassy in London even promoting May’s “strong and stable” slogan.’
The Labour source added: ‘Western governments have also backed greater regional autonomy in Ukraine to help end the conflict, so Bob Seely’s suggestion that this is somehow sinister is utterly ridiculous.’
In March, Mr Corbyn faced fierce criticism from dozens of moderate Labour MPs over his response to the Salisbury nerve agent attack. It was also claimed that some moderate MPs wanted to oust Mr Milne.