Government officials asked whether the late Queen would block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage because of concerns that he could be a national security risk due to his father’s links to the Putin regime, a documentary has claimed.
The aides contacted Buckingham Palace in July 2020 to request that the monarch intervene, which she was constitutionally entitled to do, after Boris Johnson decided to press ahead with the controversial peerage despite warnings from the intelligence agencies, according to the film-makers.
The Palace is understood to have refused, fearing that the irregular request would drag the Queen into controversial political matters, and his elevation to the House of Lords as Baron Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia went ahead that December.
The Guardian first reported in October 2020 that the UK security services had briefed the House of Lords Appointments Commission (Holac), which scrutinises the nomination of new peers, that Lebedev was viewed as a potential national security risk because of his father, Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire oligarch.
Yet although they did not say that Evgeny himself was a risk, they did raise his father’s ongoing relationship with the Kremlin, according to the Channel 4 documentary Boris, the Lords & the Russian Spy: Dispatches.
Two intelligence officers were invited into Downing Street to brief Johnson in person about their security concerns in spring 2020, according to the documentary. Officials then took the unusual move of contacting the palace, it claimed.
Lord Clark, a Labour peer and member of Holac who vetted Lebedev’s nomination, said Johnson was “quite determined” to “get his own way”, that he “threatened” the usual conventions and “tried to overrule – and did overrule” security advisers and Holac.
Speaking publicly for the first time about the nomination, he said that it would have been unprecedented for No 10 to ask for the Queen to intervene. “I’ve never heard of officials seeking a meeting with Her Majesty to discuss these issues,” he said.
“We’ve got to remember these people [officials], they are aware of things which you and I, aren’t aware of. Therefore they have knowledge. They were really concerned about this. They thought it was a major, major mistake.”
Johnson has run into further trouble over Lords appointments since being forced out from Downing Street last year, with just seven of the names out of an original 16 on his controversial resignation honours list being awarded peerages.
Clark said of Lebedev’s peerage: “Every other prime minister by and large followed the conventions. Boris Johnson was quite determined that he was going to get his own way.
“And that threatened the whole notion of conventions which make British government work. And it was a real threat. He disregarded the constitution, and that is a very dangerous position.”
He added: “He tried to overrule – and did overrule – the security advisers and the House of Lords Appointments Commission. The whole point of [Holac] was actually to try and give the civil population a real say in the safety, their safety, of the country.”
A spokesperson for Johnson told the Guardian: “Boris Johnson is fully supportive of Lord Lebedev’s appointment. As the government has previously confirmed, Holac and security advice was not overruled. The proper process was followed. As this programme makes clear, there were no concerns about Lord Lebedev.
“Lord Lebedev is a British citizen. He has invested in British journalism and has extensively criticised the Russian regime. It is not right to judge people on the basis of their country of birth or the sound of their surname. This is a tiresome and xenophobic campaign.”
However, Lord Bew, the chair of Holac, confirmed last year that MI5 raised security concerns when Lebedev, who owns the Evening Standard and holds a minority stake in the Independent newspapers but derives his wealth from his father, was proposed for a peerage in March 2020.
A further update that June then concluded, according to the Sunday Times, that any security risk associated with the newspaper owner would be low, because peers do not routinely see classified government documents.
A letter from Lord Bew to Johnson the following month, which has been seen by film-makers, noted: “The security services have highlighted significant potential risks in respect of the nominee’s familial links, and the potential vulnerability of any information obtained by the nominee from his association with UK officials or government.”
Dominic Cummings, the former No 10 aide, said in March 2022 that he was in the room when Johnson was told of “serious reservations” that “parts of the deep state” had about his plan to award Lebedev a peerage, and that Johnson had reacted furiously.
In a controversial break with precedent, Johnson decided to press ahead with Lebedev’s proposed peerage regardless. He argued that, as there was no evidence linking Lord Lebedev himself to the Putin regime or Russian intelligence, it could go ahead.
A spokesperson for Lord Lebedev told the documentary makers: “He is familiar with the security advice and understands no such attempt was made by the security services to persuade the PM to withdraw the nomination.”
Lebedev has previously said he is “not a security risk to this country, which I love”, and recently issued a statement through one of the newspapers he owns, the Evening Standard, in which he dismissed the “farcical” speculation as Russophobia.
Alexander Lebedev, a KGB spy in London between 1988 and 1992, was sanctioned by Canada in May 2022, together with 13 other Russian oligarchs, for allegedly facilitating Vladimir Putin’s “senseless” full-scale attack of Ukraine.
The documentary claims that Canada’s decision to sanction Lebedev was in part based on intelligence which, its makers understand, came from MI6, although the British government had not itself imposed sanctions on the former KGB officer.
Dennis Molinaro, a Canadian former national security analyst, told the film-makers that he thought it likely Lebedev “has some type of connection to the Kremlin and to Putin and is worthy of being sanctioned in Canada … It would be unusual for the Canadian government to make a decision about sanctioning someone in the UK without having some information on that individual from the UK.
“It’s unclear why at the political level [in the UK], nothing’s been done in terms of sanctioning him. My concern would be based on Alexander’s history in the UK, that he has been engaged in a level of influence operations in the UK.
“If you have politicians that can be compromised by foreign states, it can lead to sharing of secrets. It could lead to steering of policy in their interests. It could lead to a fracturing of an alliance that the west has depended on to maintain the current international order and system. If that goes, we don’t have much left.”
Alexander Lebedev has been approached for comment. Buckingham Palace declined to comment.
• This article was amended on 27 June 2023 to clarify the extent of Evgeny Lebedev’s role in two newspapers; he owns the Evening Standard and holds a minority stake in the Independent.
Boris, the Lord & the Russian Spy: Dispatches will be broadcast on Tuesday 27 June at 10pm on Channel 4 and channel4.com
