Emily Thornberry: Tories “too afraid of upsetting people” to tackle dirty money

Labour’s Emily Thornberry has said the Conservative government has “not been taking the issue of financial crime, sanctions, dirty money, or any of it seriously enough” because they are “too afraid of upsetting people”.

During a Labour in Communications event today, the Labour frontbencher accused the Tories of not addressing the problem of money-laundering by Russian oligarchs because “many of them, they’re far too close to”.

“We know they’ve received £4m themselves, Russian-linked money. £2m of that since 2019, since Boris Johnson was elected again as Prime Minister,” the Shadow Attorney General said of the Conservative Party.

“There has been a complacency and just not wanting to look into the situation, the obvious issues with how Russian money was washing around London, with how it was dirty money, how it came from theft. We should have been guarding ourselves against it.”

Asked about Foreign Secretary Liz Truss saying she “absolutely” supports people travelling from the UK to fight for Ukraine, Thornberry rejected the idea and replied: “Well, it’s not actually legal.”

Referring to the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870, the shadow cabinet member said: “There is legislation from the 19th century that stops people leaving the country, makes it an offence to leave the country, to get involved in a war elsewhere.”

Thornberry added: “She would need to change the legislation, we would need to have proper debate about that. That isn’t something that she can click her fingers and expect to happen. I would have great concerns about it in any event.”

On Labour’s electoral chances, Thornberry said: “When people believe that there is the politics represent some form of hope, when they think that change can happen and change for the better can happen, then they vote Labour. When they don’t, they vote for someone who’s going to make them laugh.”

She told the event: “What we need to do is hold our heads up high, be confident, like each other, like ourselves. Be a competent, confident alternative to this appalling government and say, it doesn’t have to be this way.

“And that’s not a very deep analysis. But I think it’s a true analysis. And I think we need to do much more of that than we do.”

Describing the Prime Minister as a “mendacious, manipulative liar”, Thornberry said: “I think the same thing is going to happen, as happened to the Tories […] in 1906. They lost 240 seats in one night. And they were thrown out of power for 20 years. This is not impossible.”

Of today’s Labour Party, Thornberry added: “I think it’s quite possible, more than possible, for us to win the next election. But I think we have to hold our nerve, and we have to be strong, and we have to be confident.”

The frontbencher, who served in the shadow cabinets of Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, said of Miliband: “Ed has said – I think he’s right – that his mistake was being too self-conscious, thinking it through too much and not being radical enough. You know, pulling his punches.”

On Corbyn’s approach, she said: “I thought it was really interesting just how much autonomy Jeremy gave the senior politicians.” Labour’s official policy on topics such as NATO and Israel-Palestine was not “out of the mainstream”, she added.

“However, what happened was that people around Jeremy, those who are not elected politicians, would go out and brief the media on lines that were not agreed lines. And from a comms perspective, we must never, ever do that again.

“The politicians decide, and the politicians are the ones who are accountable. So for Jeremy to get up in the chamber, and to say one thing – it wasn’t crazy, it wasn’t exactly as I would have said it, but it was nothing like what was then being briefed in the lobby thereafter.

“That was where the damage was being done. And that must never happen again… You have to have the sort of discipline that, as I say, just wasn’t there.”

On Corbyn’s readmission as a Labour MP, Thornberry – who represents a neighbouring seat – said: “I think the problem is that, as has been made clear to Jeremy, there is a particular offensive post that he put up, and he needs to take that down.

“He needs to apologise and he needs to work with the Equalities Commission. And this has been going on for really a long time now. And I have to say, I just wish it would get resolved. I wish that there could be a compromise that is found.

“I think that as a former leader of the Labour Party, it would be good if Jeremy was back in the party. But I do think that he has to – he can’t just demand to come back. I think that there are things that have been asked of him, and he needs to do those things. And then it would be good if he was back in the party.”

Over the weekend, north London MP and shadow cabinet member David Lammy said of Corbyn that “I don’t think there are any plans to reinstate him”, and accused the ex-leader of “effectively parroting the lines” of Vladimir Putin.