Very Red Lion! Putin ploy to fund Labour MP’s pub
AS INTERNATIONAL espionage plots go, it sounds more Del Boy than James Bond.
But the Kremlin offered to help a taxi-driver-turned-Labour-MP set up a pub in South London in a bid to persuade him to pump out proPutin propaganda at Westminster.
The bizarre incident happened in 2012 when Clive Efford was trying to establish a ‘community pub’ at a site in his constituency in Eltham.
He has now revealed that two heavily accented ‘businessmen’ approached him to offer help, claiming to be brewing experts. But when he met them over lunch, their real motive became clear, the MP said, so he sent them packing and ‘never saw them again’.
Weeks later, MI5 warned Mr Efford he was being targeted by the Russians. But he told the agent: ‘You’re too late mate – they’ve been and gone.’
Mr Efford, who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership, told The Mail on Sunday the ‘brewers’ had made clear they came from the Russian embassy and wanted him to help set up a group of MPs sympathetic to Vladimir Putin. The existing all-party parliamentary group on Russia had enraged Putin after its leader, Blairite Labour MP Chris Bryant, denounced the regime’s anti-gay stance. ‘They weren’t happy with overthe-top criticism of Russia by the existing MPs’ group,’ Mr Efford explained. He met the men – ‘chubby, in their late 40s or early 50s’ – via an unnamed acquaintance who, along with Mr Efford, paid the lunch bill to ensure they were not compromised. When it became clear what they wanted, Mr Efford said: ‘I told them they had got the wrong guy. They hot-footed it out.’ He said he did not make a note of the Russians’ names and did not think it worth reporting the incident at the time.
Later in 2012, The Conservative Friends of Russia group was set up but soon collapsed after strong links to the Russian embassy were revealed – and after they circulated a photograph of Mr Bryant in his underwear.
Labour MP Emma Reynolds said she had also been approached about setting up a similar group among her parliamentary colleagues.