Not wanting to be left out as Theresa May succeeded in hobbling the UK economy yesterday with a trillion pound hit without MPs even voting on it, John McDonnell doubled down with an even more aggressive green assault on business last night. McDonnell told an incredulous City audience last night about his plans for legislation to de-list any company from the London Stock Exchange that failed to meet his environmental criteria. It’s hard to overstate just how bonkers this plan is…
One City financier branded it “financial totalitarianism” and said it would be a “catastrophe” for Britain’s economy if it was ever carried out. May’s desperate attempt to carve out some sort of meagre legacy for herself has started a bidding war with Labour over who can inflict more damage on the economy in the name of the “environment” which Corbyn and McDonnell are only too happy to go along with. Never mind the fact that Corbyn showed no signs of caring about it before posh protesters started holding yoga parties on London’s major thoroughfares. Puts “f*ck business” very much in context…
All this will mean is that companies will transfer their listing from the London Stock Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange. It will achieve nothing except to lessen the amount the City of London generates in tax revenues to fund public services. Kamikaze Communism…
Former Tory MP and tree-hugging Energy & Climate Change minister Greg Barker has had a difficult start to 2018. As we previously reported in November, Russophile Lord Barker of Battle’s primary role as chairman of En+ Group was to add a veneer of respectability to reassure the City as the Russian energy and aluminium producer listed on the London Stock Exchange. Once the LSE accepted the listing, Barker must have thought his main struggles were over…
Slightly concerning then that Barker’s boss, Oleg Deripaska, is now under the cosh on several fronts. At the end of January Deripaska was named on the US Treasury list of oligarchs linked to the Russian government. Deripaska owns over 70% of En+ and is also the subject of a letter to the SFO from the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, calling for an anti-corruption investigation into his affairs after he was filmed on a yacht with Sergei Prikhodko, Russia’s deputy PM. The yacht trip only added to the intrigue around Deripaska’s links to Manafort and the Trump campaign, especially with new allegations of more meetings on the US elections surfacing…
This is likely not M’lud Barker’s biggest headache. Both MI6 and officials in Washington are angry that the float went ahead, as most of the funds raised went straight to the state-owned Russian bank VTB, which is under both EU and US sanctions. Having secured a bridgehead on the LSE, En+ is rumoured to be gearing up to raise another $1 billion from investors. While happy for its oligarchs to raise money in London, Russia seems less pleased about the presence of ex-KGB officials in Salisbury. Barker, a close pal of ex-PM David Cameron, must be wondering how to salvage this one…
Greg Barker, now m’Lord Barker of Battle, Cameron’s husky hugging companion and former swivel-eyed Energy & Climate Change minister, has found a use for his experience gained in Government. Long a fan of Russian billionaires, Barker is the newly-appointed chairman of EN+, a Russian energy and aluminium conglomerate controlled by oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Barker’s first job is to bring a veneer of respectability to the energy company as it floats on the LSE. He’ll have his work cut out…
EN+’s owner is certainly close to the Kremlin: wikileaked US diplomatic cables described Deripaska as one of “the two or three oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis”, while the US still refuses to give him a visa due to his links to organised crime. Deripaska’s dealings with Manafort won’t help his cause…
More troubling are EN+’s ties to VTB Bank, the Russian lender that has been sanctioned by the US and EU since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea in 2014. As the Spectator pointed out:
EN+ says it intends to use the ‘primary proceeds’ of the share offering ‘to repay a portion of its debt’ – which is owed largely to Russian banks such as VTB (also an EN+ shareholder) that helped bail out Deripaska’s businesses with Kremlin support after the 2008 crash, and are currently subject to US and EU sanctions. So London investors’ money will be flowing back into Putin’s other-wise ostracised banking system.
With sanctions still in place on VTB and Russia, Barker has to convince investors that this deal does not violate sanctions. He’ll have an even harder time explaining to Cameron why he’s working around sanctions his own government helped put in place…
Aside from all that, take a moment to reflect on the sheer cynicism of a husky hugging Climate Change hyping minister becoming Chairman of a coal-mining to aluminum smelting conglomerate. One Tory grandee told Guido that Barker “must be short of cash.”
Guido hears Ruth Porter is moving to the private sector to head up UK government relations for the London Stock Exchange. Porter was most recently Liz Truss’ special adviser before heading off on maternity leave. She was a leading light in SW1 wonk world at the IEA and Policy Exchange before moving into government, where she held three SpAd positions in Coalition and post-2015. Congratulations… MoG?
