Keir Starmer turned down a lengthy photo opportunity with Evgeny Lebedev shortly after he became Labour leader, the Guardian can reveal, with aides citing a desire to keep the Russian businessman at arm’s length.
Starmer, the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in north London, was invited to spend the day with the proprietor of the Evening Standard and the Independent during the first months of the Covid pandemic.
The invitation in June 2020 involved a planned visit to a church in Kensington, where Starmer would be greeted by Lord Lebedev and see the church’s efforts to feed homeless people. The pair were to prepare meals with volunteer chefs and hand out packed lunches together.
Starmer’s team turned down the offer to be pictured alongside Lebedev, though said they were prepared to send a supportive quote.
Sources said the invitation had been extended after a Zoom meeting with Standard staff where the possibility of a visit was initially raised with Starmer.
Lebedev, the son of a former KGB agent, was given a peerage by Boris Johnson, who has insisted he is not a security risk. Johnson denied he intervened to secure a peerage for Lebedev after intelligence services had warned it would be a security risk, after reports in the Guardian and Sunday Times.
Lebedev has condemned the invasion of Ukraine and called on Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops. “At the moment many with Russian roots are under scrutiny, including myself,” Lebedev wrote. “I understand the reason for this as it is inevitable when events of such magnitude occur and the world order as we have known it in recent decades suddenly gets torn up.”
Lebedev, who joined the House of Lords in November 2020 as a crossbencher, said he was “not a security risk to this country, which I love” and that while his father had been a KGB agent, he was “not some agent of Russia”.
“Being Russian does not automatically make one an enemy of the state, and it is crucial we do not descend into Russophobia, like any other phobia, bigotry or discrimination,” Lebedev said.
Though he has said he is not supportive of the Kremlin regime, Lebedev has used some of his public profile to question the British line on matters related to Russia, including tweets that raised whether the defector Alexander Litvinenko was “murdered by MI6”, quoting a Mail article.
In 2014 he told Andrew Marr that Crimea had been “for many years” part of Russia and that “Russia has reached out to the west and I think now it’s time to stop cold war rhetoric on both sides”. In 2015 he wrote that the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, was better for the west’s “security and interests”, adding: “On this point I am emphatically with Putin.”
Starmer, a former director of public prosecutions, wrote to Lord Bew, the chair of the House of Lords appointments commission, to ask him to reassess the peerage.
“For Boris Johnson to nominate to the House of Lords someone who has promoted the worst conspiracy theories and defences of Vladimir Putin shows just how flawed the prime minister’s judgment is,” he said.
“The accusations made by Lord Lebedev that the British security services had any involvement in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko is insulting. I have seen first-hand the real impact of Russian interference in Britain and the difficulties prosecutors encounter when dealing with those who act on behalf of Putin. This is a clearly a matter of national security.”
Labour politicians have been courted by Lebedev in the past. Ed Miliband attended a party thrown by the mogul at Lebedev’s house in west London to mark the launch of London Live.
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have also attended his events, with Blair interviewed by Lebedev personally for a piece in the Independent. Brown’s wife, Sarah, attended a black-tie fundraiser hosted by Lebedev.
Lebedev has been approached for comment.
