£200,000 Russian donation to Conservatives

23rd November 2019

FactcheckUK (formerly known as the Conservative Party) were given £200,000 by Lubov Chernukhin, according to the Electoral Commission. Chernukhin is the wife of one of Vladimir Putin's former ministers.

Anyone who cares about British democracy will be deeply troubled by this development. Putin does not have Britain's best interests at heart. He wants a weakened Britain and a divided Europe, and Boris Johnson is his man.

Johnson recently suppressed the publication of a report into Russian interference in the British political process.

Details of individual donations to factcheckUK, including Chernukhin's, can be found here.

Funding of political parties

Donations to parties in first week of election campaign 2019 — BBC's graphic for donations to parties in first week of election campaign

The Russian donation is one of many to the Conservatives in the first week of the election campaign. Donations over £7,500 to them totalled £5.6 million; Lib Dems were second, with just £280,000.

Unregistered donations to the Tories (those under £7,500) amounted to £4 million in the same period, compared with £1 million to Labour.

This amounts to a system of funding of political parties that is not fit for purpose; it is broken.