Cameron Thomas

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I hope that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) enjoyed the email that I sent him this afternoon. Carl von Clausewitz described war as a continuation of politics by other means. In the Kremlin, the reverse is true and every lever of statehood is a machine of war. Vladimir Putin has been prosecuting that war against the United Kingdom and our allies for 26 years—whether or not we understand that. NATO and the European Union are two major barriers to Putin’s ambition for expansion and the UK is a crucial partner to both. In November 2025, Nathan Gill, Reform UK’s erstwhile leader in Wales, was convicted of taking Russian bribes in return for favourable statements in the European Parliament. The hon. Member for Clacton, and leader of Reform UK, described his once close associate as a “bad apple”, but I suspect that the real rot is at the heart of the orchard. The hon. Member for Clacton also made pro-Kremlin statements as a Member of the European Parliament, most notably in 2014, the year that Russia first invaded Ukraine, when he spoke of Europe poking “the Russian bear with a stick”. The previous year, he had met the Russian ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko, at the Russian embassy in London. He later denied that that meeting took place, but a photograph of the pair betrays the falsehood. Arron Banks also met Yakovenko on at least four occasions between 2015 and 2016, a period within which he donated at least £8 million to a campaign to leave the European Union. He has subsequently given conflicting accounts as to the origin of that donation. Banks is known to have explored the possibility of raising foreign donations through an email copied to Steve Bannon in 2015, and in 2025, Reform UK received a donation of £9 million from the co-owner of cryptocurrency Tether, Christopher Harborne. Tether is understood by the National Crime Agency to be used by the Kremlin to launder its money, evading international sanctions and keeping its war machine running.