Revealed: Putin and Moscow millions linked to Boris and Gove’s Brexit ‘coup’
A RUSSIAN link to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove’s successful plot to persuade Theresa May to take a tougher stance on Brexit has been uncovered by The Mail on Sunday.
A secret letter sent by the Cabinet Ministers to the Prime Minister was co-ordinated by a senior figure in a free-market UK think-tank founded by a tycoon who made a fortune in Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The financier who established that think-tank, the Legatum Institute, also helped President Vladimir Putin’s associates take control of Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom.
The institute’s economics director, Shanker Singham, was the ‘third man’ in drawing up Johnson and Gove’s Brexit ultimatum, which this newspaper disclosed last month. The organisation, which operates from a townhouse in London’s affluent Mayfair, was set up using some of the fortune that secretive New Zealand-born tycoon Christopher Chandler made with brother Richard from a string of investments, some of which were made during the ‘wild capitalism’ of the post-Soviet economy.
Last night, one leading MP called for an investigation by Parliament’s intelligence and security committee into the Legatum Institute and its influence on the Government.
But an Institute spokesman defended the charity’s influence in the Brexit letter and denied that Mr Chandler had any role.
It comes amid a separate political row over claims that the Kremlin secretly interfered in both Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. This newspaper has traced thousands of pro-Brexit social media posts to a ‘troll factory’ based in St Petersburg.
Mr Singham and Mr Gove were both at a behind-closed-doors Commons seminar on Brexit on Friday, which was also attended by No10 and officials from the US Embassy. All guests were sworn to secrecy.
The Mail on Sunday photographed Mr Singham as he slipped out of the meeting on Friday afternoon.
Asked about his links with the Legatum Institute, Mr Gove told this newspaper he had met one of the Chandler brothers on one occasion. But he declined to comment on Friday’s meeting with Mr Singham, or Mr Singham’s role in the letter, saying: ‘The blessed sponge of amnesia wipes the memory slate clean.’
Johnson and Gove’s Legatumbacked letter, revealed by The Mail on Sunday a fortnight ago, made three key demands to Mrs May: to force Chancellor Philip Hammond to do more to plan for a ‘hard Brexit’; to use our withdrawal from the EU to scrap swathes of rules and regulations; and to appoint a new ‘Brexit Tsar’ to head up a task force within Whitehall. All three demands seem to have been met.
Mr Hammond used the Budget to announce an extra £3billion to prepare for a ‘no deal’ on Brexit talks. Mr Gove has reportedly boasted that he has won Mrs May’s backing to use our EU withdrawal to break free of all Brussels rules. Our investigation suggests that Mr Singham is effectively becoming that ‘Brexit Tsar’: over the past year, he has held at least seven secret meetings with Ministers and officials at DexEU – the Department for Exiting the EU – including
a summit at Chevening, the Kent home shared by Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox. Mr Singham, who has dual UK and US citizenship, has worked on trade deals involving Russia in the past.
He previously spent 18 years working for US law firm Squire Sanders, which was subsequently dragged into the row over Donald Trump’s links to Russia. The company formed an alliance with one of the President’s former lawyers, Michael Cohen, who had been embroiled in controversy for approaching Putin’s spokesman for help on a property deal.
Asked if Mr Singham had helped write the letter to Mrs May, Mr Gove declined to answer four times before claiming he had forgotten. The Environment Secretary confirmed he had met Mr Singham, an Oxford University contemporary. He also said he had met Monacobased Christopher Chandler, who fiercely guards his privacy, at an event backed by the Legatum Institute and hosted by former Tory Cabinet Minister Lord Cranborne.
The Chandlers extended their flourishing business empire into Russia in the 1990s, when state businesses were being privatised, and lucky entrepreneurs were able to make a killing. Through their company, Sovereign Global, they
built a substantial holding in Gazprom, the government-controlled energy giant.
Shortly after Putin became Russian president for the first time in 2000, the Chandlers, angered by the corruption they had witnessed in Gazprom, were credited with helping to trigger a boardroom coup which subsequently led to Alexey Miller being installed as head of the company.
The Chandlers say they helped to bring ‘transparency and accountability’ to the company. Miller was a close ally and confidant of Putin’s from their time working together in St Petersburg.
Putin used the vast profits from Gazprom, the world’s largest energy company, to consolidate his grip on power. In 2005 another Putin ally, Dmitry Medvedev, the current Prime Minister, became chairman of Gazprom.
The Chandlers split their fortunes in 2006, with Christopher using his share to help form the Legatum Group, operating from Dubai. The Legatum Group then spawned the Legatum Institute, which the group says is an independent charity .
The Institute has played a key role in pushing Mrs May’s Government closer to a ‘hard Brexit’.
It referred questions to the Legatum Group, which last night confirmed that Mr Singham is advising the Government because of his ‘unparalleled expertise in economics and trade as a public service.’
The spokesman said Mr Chandler was ‘not aware’ of the Johnson/ Gove letter. He added that Mr Chandler had made his money in many endeavours, not just Russia, was ‘not involved in running the Legatum Institute’ and had no ‘role in appointing Mr Singham’.
The institute’s accounts show it received more than £4.4million last year – of which £3.9m came from the Legatum Foundation, the ‘development wing’ of the Legatum Group. And the Johnson/Gove letter is not the only thing linking the organisation to the Government:
It paid Brexit Secretary David Davis £5,000 to make a speech at its London office and flew him to Los Angeles for another function;
Legatum Institute trade expert Crawford Falconer was appointed Liam Fox’s chief trade negotiator two months ago;
Legatum Institute ‘senior fellow’ Matthew Elliott was chief executive of Gove and Johnson’s Vote Leave referendum campaign.
Mr Elliott was caught up in a Russian controversy in 2012, when he was targeted by a man the Home Office now believes was a spy.
Russian diplomat Sergey Nalobin cultivated links with Elliott and helped to found Conservative Friends of Russia, later revealed to have links to Russian intelligence.
In 2015, Nalobin had his permission to stay in Britain suddenly revoked after the inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium poisoning in London concluded that he was probably murdered on Putin’s personal orders.
The Chancellor’s £3 billion Budget boost, and claims that Mrs May now supports Mr Gove’s demand to ditch EU standards, will fuel claims the Government is following the Institute’s Brexit blueprint.
The charity’s involvement in the secret Johnson-Gove letter and Friday’s Commons summit will lead to more questions about the alleged cloak-and-dagger aspects of its influence. One senior Government source claimed the institute had ‘staged a soft coup via Johnson and Gove’ and that civil servants who have to obey strict anti-corruption rules had effectively been bypassed.
Mr Johnson will visit Russia next month for talks with Putin. Brexit is sure to be on the agenda.
Labour MP Liam Byrne, a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: ‘In the light of these revelations of the close links between the Legatum Institute and the JohnsonGove hard Brexit putsch, it is now critical that this think-tank’s relationship with the Government is thoroughly investigated.
‘I urge Parliament’s intelligence and security committee to launch a wide inquiry into Russian interference and settle the serious and lingering questions’.
‘There are serious and lingering questions’
OPEN, lawful and accountable government is essential to civilisation. But it is rare in the world. One of the great unrecognised treasures of this country is an impartial and incorruptible civil service, the irreplaceable heritage of Victorian rectitude and high-mindedness.
So it is disturbing and perplexing to find that a group of pro-Brexit Ministers, led by the usual suspects – Michael Gove and Boris Johnson – is operating in close concert with the Legatum Institute Foundation, bypassing normal Whitehall procedures to push for their Hard Brexit agenda.
The institute operates in this country from a discreet but opulent Mayfair townhouse. The fund which gave birth to it, Legatum, is based in Dubai, and is the creation of a secretive billionaire, New Zealander Christopher Chandler, said to have made much of his fortune in postCommunist Russia.
Now we learn that its chief, Shanker Singham, was the third man behind the Gove-Johnson secret letter to the Prime Minister, which began a major effort to wrench Downing Street away from wise compromise and towards the riskiest possible version of Brexit.
Mr Singham has even attended a summit on EU policy at Chevening, the majestic country house shared by the three Brexit Ministers. The institute has also paid a substantial speaking fee to Brexit Secretary David Davis. One of its key figures, Crawford Falconer, has been appointed chief trade negotiation adviser in Liam Fox’s department.
Mr Singham and Mr Gove were both at a recent closed-doors seminar on the EU at the Commons, an occasion which Mr Gove was very reluctant to discuss.
A case can be made for bringing outside experts into the government process, where professional civil servants lack knowledge and experience. But the quiet embedding of the Legatum Institute Foundation into Brexit goes much further.
It begins to look like a private civil service, with access to the very top, dedicated to the achievement of the secret aims of a faction, rather than the declared aims of the elected Government.
It is essential that Legatum, its links and its purposes, are subjected to proper scrutiny. The Labour MP and former Minister Liam Byrne is urging Parliament’s Intelligence Committee to make a close study of the Legatum Institute. This would be a good start. But Parliament and the Cabinet should continue to be vigilant about these activities.