Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, as they say, and the one positive note of Boris Johnson’s disastrous tenure as prime minister was to put his government and the Conservative Party wholesale behind Ukraine following its invasion by Russia. But is someone now blotting the Tory copybook?
Because, while the Tories and their media buddies have been relentless in their attacks on attorney general Lord Hermer for having represented the likes of Gerry Adams before he was in political office, the Conservatives’ actual shadow in the role has been found to be acting as a lawyer for the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich now.
It has emerged Lord Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, is part of the legal team representing the former owner of Chelsea FC in his court battle with the Jersey government. Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The oligarch, who made his fortune in oil and gas, is alleged to have close ties to Vladimir Putin, which he denies.
Suggested Reading
Liz Truss changes her tune on Abdel Fattah
More than £5.3 billion of Abramovich’s assets have been frozen by the Jersey courts since the invasion in 2022 and they are the subject of a highly complicated legal dispute. The case has been picked up by justice minister Jack Richards, who has written to Tory minister Kemi Badenoch, saying: “As shadow attorney-general, Lord Wolfson has a crucial role in formulating Conservative Party policy. As a paid representative of Mr Abramovich, he has a financial interest in the question of whether and when Mr Abramovich’s assets are transferred to benefit the people of Ukraine.”
It isn’t Wolfson’s first Russian rodeo. Back in January, The Lawyer magazine reported he had been instructed to defend DP World Russia FZCO, the Russian arm of a logistics giant, which was working to help develop a Kremlin-backed project, in a case before London’s Commercial Court. At the time he said: “As I have said before … ‘Don’t judge a surgeon by their patients, a journalist by their interviewees – or a lawyer by their clients.’”
But, attacking Lord Hermer in his Conservative Party conference speech earlier this year, Wolfson’s colleague, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, told his audience: “Like one of those infamous mafia lawyers of yesteryear, Hermer always chose a particular type of client: Shamima Begum, Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, terrorists involved in 7/7.” One rule for them, one rule for us…
Most popular
The trouble with Brigitte Bardot
Calls to remove el-Fattah’s UK citizenship are dictatorial
Next June 23, how will you mark Brexit’s decade of decay?
Putin is out to destroy the UK and Europe. If we don’t accept that, we’re doomed
