Thread by @karolcummins

‼️CEO VoteLeave Mathew Elliott

In 2004, Elliott had founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance, a rightwing pressure group advocating low taxes and minimal gov’t, & rose to win one of the most coveted and responsible jobs of 2016: chief executive of Vote Leave.
theguardian.com/politics/2017/…

In 2012 – or possibly earlier – Matthew Elliott was targeted by a man the Home Office now believes was a Russian spy. SERGEY NALOBIN was the first secretary in the Russian embassy’s political section in London when Elliott met him
theguardian.com/politics/2017/…

📌Nalobin “was tasked with building relations with MPs [and] a regular fixture on the Westminster drinks circuit and at political party conferences”.
telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…

📌Nalobin had long been a person of interest. In 2012, he was the key figure at the heart of an organization called Conservative Friends of Russia.

📌The launch of which, was held in RU Amb Alexander Yakovenko’s garden.
theguardian.com/politics/2017/…

The Conservative Friends of Russia was not what it seemed, and nor was Nalobin.

A series of reports revealed that Nalobin was intimately connected to the FSB, and that the Conservative Friends of Russia was a Moscow influence operation.
theguardian.com/politics/2012/…

Matthew Elliott has never made his association w/ the Conservative Friends of Russia public. In 2012, he was not publicly known.

But photographs from 2012 reveal that he was a founding member of the group & later that year went on a 10-day trip to Moscow
theguardian.com/politics/2012/…

📌Elliott declined to answer any questions from the Observer about his relationship with Nalobin or Conservative Friends of Russia. He declined also to explain the nature of the political work he claims to have done in Ukraine in some official biographies.
en.llri.lt/wp-content/upl…

📌Tory blushes deepen over Conservative Friends of Russia - Matthew Elliott
stopfake.org/en/tory-blushe…

📌Crimes may have been committed by the Vote Leave campaign during the EU referendum.

📌Matthew Elliott, the CEO of Vote Leave, the campaign headed by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, both now government ministers,
amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/…

@threadreaderapp unroll please and thank you.
#Brexit #MatthewElliott #MichaelGove #BorisJohnson #Nalobin