Labor will force a binding vote to release information about Boris Johnson’s involvement in the decision to award the peerage to the owner of the Evening Standard. Angela Reiner, the party’s deputy leader, will request information on her appointment by the cabinet. The Guardian revealed in October 2020 that Johnson met with Lebedev in March, shortly before the House of Lords nomination committee, which oversees all nominations, wrote to the prime minister. He appears to have expressed concern about Lebedev’s proposed conspiracy and called on Downing Street to reconsider. The Peers reportedly had confidential information from the UK security services, who claimed the appointment was a potential security risk because of Lebedev’s father, Alexander Lebedev, a former KGB agent who worked secretly at the Soviet embassy in London. Downing Street then reportedly sought further reassurances from security services. They provided an extra frame, which was enough to lead to a different result, and the peers signed the appointment. Johnson denied that he had intervened to secure a conspiracy, and Lebedev said after further coverage by the Sunday Times that he was not an “agent of Russia.” Johnson’s former chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, said he was in the room when Cabinet officials told Johnson that intelligence services and other parts of the deep state had “serious reservations about the prime minister’s plan.” He said the prime minister had stopped talking to him about the matter and “took a boat to enter the maze of the Council of Ministers and conclude an agreement”. Reiner will use the humble approach taken by Labor during the Brexit years to force the publication of key documents. He will ask Steve Barkley, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, to submit to parliament all information concerning the appointment process. The government had previously told lawmakers to abstain from Labor’s non-binding proposals – but the humble speech technique has been legally binding in the past and could lead Tories to flog lawmakers to vote against the revelation. “This is an important national security issue,” Reiner said. “The prime minister has allowed his friendship with the son and partner of a former KGB agent to blind him to his primary duty to the British public – to keep them safe. The prime minister once again put personal interests above the public and this time endangered national security. “The British public has a right to know if and how Boris Johnson gave a seat in the heart of our parliament to someone who is apparently concerned about our intelligence services, despite security advice.” The proposal states that “there are concerns about the appropriateness and procedure for the appointment of Lord Lebedev as a Member of the House of Lords and the role of the Prime Minister in this process”. It shall request “any document held by the Office of the Minister or of the Office of the Prime Minister containing or relating to advice from or supplied to the House of Lords Appointments Committee concerning his appointment. [Lebedev]”, Including practices, submissions and electronic communications, which could be text messages or WhatsApp messages. The resolution states that modifications are allowed for reasons of national security.
