Tory peer’s link to Putin business ally must end

Mrs May needs to follow the tougher US line on sanctions on Moscow after the Salisbury poisoning

Wide-ranging sanctions have been imposed against Mr Deripaska and his enterprises in the US

Ever since Theresa May made her startling revelations about the involvement of Russia’s GRU military intelligence organisation in the Salisbury poisoning, the Government has made no secret of its intention to enact punitive measures against those it holds responsible.

Apart from intensifying the sanctions already in place over another Russian-orchestrated atrocity on British soil – the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 – Downing Street has stressed that one of its main targets will be the GRU. This is the intelligence outfit that is said to have sent two agents to Britain to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer, with the deadly Novichok nerve agent.

In Mrs May’s address to the Commons, in which she set out in detail how the two GRU agents carried out the Salisbury attack, the Prime Minister declared that the “full range of tools from across our national security apparatus” would be used against the GRU, and that any company or individual found to have ties with the GRU would be targeted. That British intelligence officers are now believed to be investigating whether the GRU has any involvement in a Russian company that has links with a prominent Tory peer is therefore likely by a source of major embarrassment for the Government.

Lord Barker of Battle, who was awarded his peerage by David Cameron in 2015, is generating headlines once more over his chairmanship of the Russian energy company EN+, in which Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch known to have close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has a significant stake.

Lord Barker has already encountered strong criticism from MPS after it emerged that MI6 had expressed deep concern over the ease with which EN+ was allowed to raise £1 billion on the London Stock Exchange last year – funds that were then used to pay off debts to Russian banks subject to US sanctions.

Now the peer faces a gruelling session before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. They are particularly interested in whether GRU has any connection to, or involvement with Rusal, the Russian aluminium conglomerate that provides specialised material for the Russian military, including material of the type used in the production of the BUK anti-aircraft system that Dutch investigators say shot down flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, killing 298 people on board.

Since Mr Putin came to power, Russia’s powerful security establishment has established a close working relationship with major Russian corporations, especially those associated with the Russian military. This symbiotic relationship lies at the heart of Mr Putin’s ambition to rebuild the Russian military into a dominant global force.

It is this cosy relationship that British and American security officials are working, in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings, to disrupt – by targeting any company they consider may have even a loose connection to Russia’s security establishment.

A spokesman for Rusal told me that Rusal does not have links to GRU and does not have former GRU employees working for the company but this could still all prove very embarrassing for Lord Barker, as EN+ owns around 50 per cent of Rusal, which now finds itself under increased scrutiny from Western security agencies.

Lord Barker’s insistence, moreover, that he is actually working in Britain’s interests by seeking to downgrade Mr Deripaska’s involvement is starting to wear a bit thin given that the oligarch continues to own about 66 per cent of EN+ through a series of holding companies.

Even Mr Cameron, Lord Barker’s former mentor, is said to have expressed his frustration in private at the peer’s refusal to end his association with a company owned by one of Mr Putin’s more controversial oligarchs.

The peer can therefore expect a tough reception when he finally appears before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. I understand that he is now due to appear before MPS next month.

It should be a matter of the deepest concern for the Government that a former Tory minister should be involved at all with a company so closely associated with the Putin regime.

In the United States, where Congress has adopted a far more confrontational approach towards the Kremlin, wide-ranging sanctions have been imposed against both Mr Deripaska and his business enterprises.

If Mrs May is really serious about confronting those responsible for the Salisbury poisoning, then she must follow Washington’s example.

follow Con Coughlin on Twitter @concoughlin; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion