Johnson-Lebedev relationship under scrutiny

Villa that hosted Johnson reportedly under surveillance by Italian intelligence

Evgeny Lebedev in 2010 (Allan Warren, CC.3.0)

The relationship between former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Russian-British businessman Evgeny Lebedev is the subject of an upcoming documentary on Channel 4’s Dispatches series tomorrow night. Several aspects of the story are already being trailed in the media.

Tortoise reports that as Prime Minister, Johnson ignored MI5 advice when he made Lebedev a member of the House of Lords, prompting Cabinet Office officials to seek an intervention from the Crown. (The Queen’s reported refusal perhaps underlines the limitations of the monarchy as a constitutional safeguard).

It is not clear which ‘senior officials at the Cabinet Office’ made the request. While the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case is reputedly close to Johnson, the department is also home to the National Security Adviser and the Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Lord Lebedev is the son of Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB officer who has faced sanctions from Ukraine for acquiring assets in Crimea.

According to the Guardian, a villa where the Lebedevs hosted Johnson during his tenure as Foreign Secretary was under counter-espionage surveillance by Italian intelligence.

Italian security concluded in a secret document that Alexander Lebedev, a former Russian spy who became a wealthy businessman, had continued to enjoy the “favour and friendship” of Vladimir Putin and queried whether he had genuinely severed ties with Russian intelligence after leaving the KGB decades earlier.

The report is said to have been written for former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte by Italy’s foreign intelligence agency, AISE.