{"id":4178,"date":"2025-12-16T15:28:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4178"},"modified":"2025-12-16T15:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:28:24","slug":"minister-orders-probe-into-foreign-financial-interference-in-uk-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=4178","title":{"rendered":"Minister orders probe into foreign financial interference in UK politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The government has ordered an independent review into foreign financial interference in UK politics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">It comes after the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, Nathan Gill, <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5yd878ejqko\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"noopener\">was jailed for 10-and-a-half years<\/a> after admitting to taking bribes for pro-Russian interviews and speeches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Announcing the review, Communities Secretary Steve Reed said the government must &#8220;learn the lessons&#8221; from the case so &#8220;this can never happen again&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The review will be led by former senior civil Philip Rycroft and will report back in March. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Speaking in the House of Commons, Reed said: &#8220;The facts are clear. A British politician took bribes to further the interests of the Russian regime, a regime which forcefully deported vulnerable Ukrainian children and killed a British citizen on British soil using a deadly nerve agent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;This conduct is a stain on our democracy. The independent review will work to remove that stain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Earlier this year the government <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/restoring-trust-in-our-democracy-our-strategy-for-modern-and-secure-elections\/restoring-trust-in-our-democracy-our-strategy-for-modern-and-secure-elections\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"noopener\">published its strategy<\/a> for &#8220;modern and secure elections&#8221;, which Reed said &#8220;will close loopholes that should have been closed long before we entered office&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;However, in the time since that strategy was published, events have shown that we need to consider whether our firewall is enough,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The government said the review would conduct an &#8220;in-depth assessment of the current financial rules and safeguards and offer recommendations to further mitigate risks from foreign political interference&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">It described the review as &#8220;a response to the evolving threat posed by political interference to British democracy, including the shocking cases of former MEP Nathan Gill and Christine Lee&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In 2022, MI5 issued a rare warning alleging that Ms Lee was a Chinese agent who infiltrated Parliament and made donations to politicians. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Ms Lee has previously said the MI5 alert &#8220;wrongly accused her of knowingly engaging in political interference&#8221; on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Last month, Gill became the first politician to be jailed under the Bribery Act. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He is thought to have received up to \u00a340,000 to help pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Minister #orders #probe #foreign #financial #interference #politics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The government has ordered an &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}