Brexit

A prominent former politician in Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party has denied he took payments as part of a pro-Russian influence campaign in the European Parliament.

David Coburn is named in a series of WhatsApp messages between an alleged “pawn” of the main security agency in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and disgraced former MEP Nathan Gill.

Coburn was also Scotland’s UK Independence Party leader while Gill led the party in Wales and they served as MEPs together for five years.

Messages were released following the conviction of Gill, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, who was last week jailed for 10-and-a-half years after taking bribes for giving pro-Russia interviews and speeches.

WhatsApps show Oleg Voloshyn, a former pro-Russian member of the Ukraine parliament, discussing money apparently set aside for Coburn while he was bribing Gill.

A document submitted by the Crown Prosecution Service to the Old Bailey last week for Gill’s sentencing hearing includes a message from Voloshyn discussing a payment of $6,500 [about £5,000] for another MEP.

Speaking outside his chateau in France, former Brexit Party and UKIP MEP Coburn answered “no” when a BBC journalist asked him whether he had ever been paid to give a speech to promote pro-Russian campaigners.

The BBC has not seen evidence that Coburn – who led the now defunct UKIP party in Scotland between 2014 and 2018 – was directly offered or received any money.

The messages were sent on 3 April 2019, two months after Coburn joined the Brexit Party, now known as Reform UK.

The CPS claims the conversation is about participation in a meeting of the “editorial board” of two pro-Russian TV channels in Ukraine called 112 Ukraine and NewsOne.

Both were connected to Viktor Medvedchuk, a super-rich Ukrainian oligarch whose daughter has Putin as her godfather and who is a key and close Putin ally.

Sentencing Gill to ten-and-half-years after admitting eight counts of bribery last week, Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Medvedchuk was the “ultimate source of the requests and the money” Gill received.

The CPS document says these messages were found on Gill’s seized mobile phone when counter terrorism officers took his device after stopping him at Manchester airport in 2021 – two days before he was due to talk at a conference in Moscow.

The WhatsApps are about money Voloshyn gave Gill to be distributed between himself and “the other MEP” mentioned.

This “other MEP” is referred to as “D” and “David”.

Coburn was the only man named David to publicly appear on this editorial board.

Gill writes that he is “seeing D… in morning” and asks “how much was for him.”

Voloshyn replies “6.5 USD” – this appears to mean $6,500.

Some confusion follows between Voloshyn and Gill about how much cash Gill had been given.

Once this is settled, Voloshyn confirms Gill will be given a further $4,500 in the morning “and other 2 for David you have already with you.”

The BBC had previously made several attempts to contact Coburn – an MEP for Scotland for five years between 2014 and 2019 – but received no reply.

The BBC went to the 66-year-old’s rural home in northern France to ask him in person if he had ever been paid money in connection to the Gill bribery case.

Coburn replied “no” as he left home – but stopped answering as he was questioned about why he was named in the court documents.

He has not responded to a further written request for comment.

Coburn and fellow former UKIP and Brexit Party MEP Jonathan Arnott both visited the two pro-Russian TV channels with Gill in October 2018.

Both Coburn and Arnott also spoke up for the broadcasters in the same European Parliament debate where Gill made a speech in return for money.

Arnott previously told the BBC if Gill had had offered him money, he would have gone to the police.

He also said he criticised Russia in his speech and said the notion he was doing what Russia wanted was “provably nonsensical.”

Speaking in the European Parliament in December 2018, Coburn used similar talking points to Gill.

“The president of Ukraine and the Rada parliament are plotting to close TV channels 112 and Channel One,” Coburn told a plenary session in Strasbourg.

“Can this chamber truthfully say Ukraine, which behaves this way, is ready for EU entry?”

The pro-Russian channels were shut in 2021 under the presidency of Ukraine’s current leader Volodomyr Zelensky.

Gill had also been bribed to organise interviews with other MEPs for the TV stations linked to Medvedchuk.

A number of these had been members of either UKIP, the Brexit Party or both – but the court heard there was no evidence to suggest they were aware Gill was being bribed.

The head of the Met’s counter terrorism unit had said Gill “clearly had a leadership role” and used his influence to get other MEPs to speak “openly in support of the Russian narrative in Ukraine.”

“It does appear in some of the conversations that there has been money put aside to allow other individuals to be paid for their services,” Met Police commander Dominic Murphy told the BBC before Gill’s sentencing.

Voloshyn’s phone was examined when stopped by FBI investigators at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport in July 2021.

That month, the Speaker of the House of Commons warned MPs against talking to Voloshyn as he allegedly had sought the support of UK politicians to “promote Russian foreign policy objectives”.

The US government sanctioned Voloshyn in 2022 and called him a “pawn” of the FSB, Russia’s security service, and accused him of undermining Ukraine’s government.

That same year, the UK government also sanctioned Voloshyn and Medvedchuk, accusing both of “destabilising Ukraine”.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called on Reform UK leader Farage, the former UKIP and Brexit Party boss, to “launch an investigation into his party urgently” to see if there’s “other links between his party and Russia.”

Farage said he was “very confident, as confident as I can be,” that nobody else in any of his parties, past or present, had done similar things to Gill.

Farage added he was “not a police force” and did not have powers to investigate but did say there should be a broader investigation into Russian and Chinese interference in British politics, suggesting MI5 should conduct it.

In a statement, Reform UK said Coburn has had “no involvement” with the current party.

A Met Police spokesperson said nobody else had been arrested or interviewed under caution but said the force’s investigation “remains ongoing.”