Eastern bloc spies ‘paid Labour MPS £10,000’
LABOUR MPS were paid up to £10,000 for secret meetings with Cold War spies, a former agent has claimed, as he revealed they threw him a “farewell party” when he was kicked out of Britain.
Jan Sarkocy, a Czechoslovak spy based in London during the Eighties, claims he was in contact with 15 party figures including Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone, and that John Mcdonnell was regularly meeting a KGB agent. The claims have been vigorously denied and Mr Corbyn has labelled him a “fantasist”.
He has now claimed that those in Parliament who acted as informants to his secret service – the Statni Bezpecnost or STB – were paid between £1,000 and £10,000. He said the payments were made in “cash on an irregular basis”, often at secret meetings in Camden, and could be to cover just a couple of encounters.
But some of the MPS got greedy, he said, adding: “It was big money. Some Labour MPS were asking [for] more and more money, they wanted it.” Mr Sarkocy said that timing of meetings with MPS and what information they asked for would depend on “what kind of information we have ordered from Prague or Moscow”.
Although he did not deal with any payments directly, he has said that it was standard practice for people like Mr Corbyn, who was a backbench MP at the time, and Mr Livingstone, the former head of the Greater London Council who entered the Commons in 1987, to be paid.
The agent, who was known by the alias Lieutenant Jan Dymic, claimed this weekend that Mr Corbyn and Mr Livingstone, whom he said used to come to the embassy to drink whisky, were “good sources” of his, although it is unclear what information they could have provided.
He also said that Mr Mcdonnell held regular meetings with a KGB agent known as P Tibor. Mr Livingstone, the former London mayor, said that the claims were a “tissue of lies” and said that he had never met anyone from the Czech embassy, although he did admit meeting a Russian “representative” at the time.
Mr Mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor, dismissed the claims as “ridiculous”.
The Labour leader, whose meetings with Mr Sarkocy were revealed in previously classified documents, has admitted that he met him on a small number of occasions, but vigorously denies supplying information to a foreign power or receiving any payment.
Mr Sarkocy came to London using diplomacy as a cover in 1986 but was thrown out by Margaret Thatcher’s government three years later amid a row over spying.
Speaking from his home in Bratislava, the Slovak said that days before he was thrown out his informants threw him a farewell party.
“Before I was due to leave the country they organised a party for me,” he said.
“It took place by the Ministry of Defence on Whitehall. Ken Livingstone was
there and Jeremy Corbyn was there along with a lot of other people.”
He said of Labour: “Even 30 years back they were the same – dangerous for the future of Britain because they were so unstable and outspoken.”
Mr Sarkocy also criticised the British intelligence services, which he said made simple errors like paying their informants with monthly bank transfers that allowed them on one occasion to establish that a senior Czechoslovak spy known as Ludvic was a double agent.
“Our informants were not paid monthly, we would not make the same mistake as the British Secret Intelligence Services who were regularly sending the money even to Mr Ludvic.
“This was a problem with Mr Ludvic and your intelligence service, they felt that they get away with everything as they were on their own soil, but they forgot to use more, more, more tricks,” Mr Sarkocy said.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “As has been repeatedly made clear, Jan Sarkocy is a fantasist, whose claims are entirely false and becoming more absurd by the day. Even his own accounts of his fabricated stories appear to be changing. These ridiculous smears should be given no credence whatsoever.”
Svetlana Ptacnikova, the head of the Czech Security Forces Archive, which keeps documents from the now-dissolved STB, said the files do not show that he was registered as an agent.
A spokesman for Mr Mcdonnell said: “These are ridiculous and false allegations. John never met any Czechoslovak or Soviet agent, nor visited the Soviet or Russian embassy.”
Mr Livingstone said: “What information would I have? I was a backbench MP and didn’t have access to anything. It’s just a tissue of lies.”