Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Goldsmith affair exposes New Labour's Putin connection
It's not 'left-wing apologists' in Britain that have helped Putin on his way, it's the Tory and Labour right who were happy to see a strong-man autocrat in power to protect their business interests, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair holds a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G8 Summit in Germany

THIS FEBRUARY Labour Lord Peter Goldsmith took a “leave of absence” from the House of Lords, because he did not want to give the details of his foreign clients.

Goldsmith, who was a key minister in Tony Blair’s government, is a lawyer running a firm with many Russian clients. Goldsmith “personally provided services” to the Russian government in 2021, according to the Register of Lords’ Interests.

Last May Goldsmith also represented Sberbank, the Russian state-owned bank. Sberbank is seen as so close to Putin’s government that it was sanctioned in Britain, the US and EU after Putin launched his bloody war on Ukraine.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
IN WASHINGTON’S SIGHTS: A man wears shirt with a image of US President Donald Trump during a government-organised rally against foreign interference, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday October 30 2025
Features / 11 November 2025
11 November 2025

Western nations’ increasingly aggressive stance is not prompted by any increase in security threats against these countries — rather, it is caused by a desire to bring about regime changes against governments that pose a threat to the hegemony of imperialism, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK

President Donald Trump meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office at the White House, August 18, 2025, in Washington
Features / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025

Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES

Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds
Features / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy talks to journalists as he arrives at Esenboga airport in Ankara, Turkey, May 15, 2025
Russia-Ukraine / 15 May 2025
15 May 2025

Meanwhile, Nato foreign ministers debate increased weapons spending as police investigate the bloc’s purchases of military equipment