Adrian Lee is a solicitor-advocate in London, specialising in criminal defence, and was twice a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
On 26th of September 2025, former MEP for Wales and Leader of Reform UK Wales, Nathan Gill, a bishop in the Mormon church and father of five, attended the Central Criminal Court for his trial on eight counts of receiving bribes whilst holding elected office, and one additional count of conspiracy to commit bribery. Following a two-year long Metropolitan Police investigation, he first appeared in the Magistrates Court in February 2025. Due to the severity of the allegations, the matter was committed to the Crown Court for trial. At his subsequent plea hearing at the Old Bailey on 14th of March, Gill entered not guilty pleas to all charges.
However, on the day that the trial was scheduled to begin, Gill’s counsel informed the Court that her client wished to be rearraigned. He then indicated a change of plea to guilty for each count. The prosecution then dropped the conspiracy to commit bribery charge. Gill had changed his pleas to guilty on the “full facts” of the Crown’s case, in other words, he accepted the prosecution’s version of events. Prosecuting counsel then set before the Court the full details of the offences.
Gill admitted to receiving “at least” £40,000 in cash from Russian sources. Specifically, Gill had met a pro-Putin politician called Oleg Voloshyn on eight occasions and agreed to issue statements that would “benefit Russia regarding events in the Ukraine”. His contact with Voloshyn began on 8th of December 2018 and continued until 18th of July 2019. It was further alleged that between 1st of January 2018 and 1st of February 2020, Gill conspired with Voloshyn to extend the network of pro-Russian contacts. At his sentence hearing on 21st of November 2025, Gill was sentenced ten years and six months in custody.
The public do not usually think of politicians on the Right as people who would naturally betray their country. The Left, particularly from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, were often suspected of suffering from the “Fellow Traveller” syndrome. In other words, containing people who would not admit to supporting Communism and the Soviet Union, but who privately sympathised with them, and sometimes assisted them with gathering information and presenting their case in the West.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, British intelligence discovered that many Labour MPs had been recruited by either the K.G.B. or one of the satellite countries agencies as “agents of influence”. These are said to have included Bob Edwards MP, Ron Brown MP, and Konni Zilliacus MP. A more noteworthy paid agent (this time of the Czech StB) was one-time Cabinet member in Harold Wilson’s 1960s government, and later convicted fraudster, John Stonehouse. However, the two highest ranking Labour members accused of working with the Kremlin were Michael Foot, later Leader of the party and Jack Jones, leader of the Transport and General Workers Union from 1969 to 1978. Both men were accused by Britain’s most senior K.G.B. defector, Oleg Gordievsky, who ran field agents such as these from the London embassy.
It would be a mistake to think that we on the Conservative side of politics are immune from this virus. Sadly, we too had a minister in Harold Macmillan’s and Alec Douglas-Home’s governments who worked for the Communists. Step forward one Raymond Mawby MP, who represented Totness constituency in Devon between 1955 and 1983. He eventually rose to being Assistant Postmaster General in 1963. Like Stonehouse (who was later Postmaster General under Wilson!), Mawby was recruited as a paid agent for the Czech StB around November 1960 and was given the appropriate codename of “Agent Laval”. Initially, he only infrequently met his handler, but by 1961 meetings were often three or four times per month. He was often treated to lovely French meals at the L’Apertif Grill in London.
The full file of Mawby’s treachery can today be read by visiting the archives of the Czech Security Service in Prague. Today, Czechia is a democracy and one of Britain’s closest Continental allies. The new regime is open about the repression and espionage committed by the Communists.
Mawby’s file runs to hundreds of pages and includes fascinating morsels of information that he gave his Czech handlers in London. These include a hand-drawn diagram of the Prime Minister’s office, sordid details of the private lives of fellow Conservative MPs and a confidential parliamentary investigation report on a Conservative peer. His StB handler writes confidentially in a note contained in the file: “Mawby has also promised to carry out tasks such as asking questions in Parliament according to our needs.”
It would be tempting to dismiss some of the opinions expressed by the Czechs in their file as exaggerations. Unfortunately, it includes Mawby’s signed receipts for £100 cash sums that he received from his handler at their meetings. One reads simply: “I am in receipt of one hundred pounds from Mr. S. Patejdl.” Mawby then signed the note, and it was dated “London 26th January 1967.”
What was Mawby’s motivation for treachery? It is unlikely that he was a secret true believer in Communism (although he had been active in the trades union movement before joining the Conservatives). The most like reason for betraying his friends and country was money. The Czech handler wrote: “His leisure time he spends in bars…and he loves gambling. While playing roulette and other games he is willing to accept a monetary ‘loan’ which was exploited twice.” Tragically, Mawby was never brought to justice, as he died in 1990, just before the complete collapse of the Soviet bloc.
Without doubt, the most repellent “fellow traveller” from the Right was someone who worked out of affection for the Nazi regime he served. Captain Archibald Maule Ramsay MP was the Scottish Unionist Member for Peebles and Southern Midlothian between 1931 and 1945.
Born in 1894, his father was younger brother of the 12th Earl of Dalhousie. Ramsay attended Eton and Sandhurst, before being commissioned into the Coldstream Guards in 1913. He served two years on the Western Front, before receiving a serious head injury and being transferred to War Office duties following a long period of treatment. In light of his later career, it is tempting to wonder if this wound affected his state of mind. Certainly, it is noted in government files that in 1920 he was placed on the half-pay list “on account of his ill health, caused by wounds”. When Ramsay eventually entered Parliament, he was perceived by colleagues to be just another Scottish aristocrat who lived in a castle, was moderately popular and had the nickname of “Jock”. Prior to 1937, that would have been true
In his first five years as an MP, he mainly asked questions regarding Scottish agriculture. He then became interested in the Spanish Civil War, eventually supporting Franco’s Nationalists. Even then, this support was conditional on continued resistance to the Soviet-sponsored Communists. However, he took another drastic turn when, on 13th of January 1938, he addressed the Arbroath Business Club. He told gathered businessmen “…that the real power behind the Third International (the Soviet club of affiliated Communist parties) is a group of revolutionary Jews.”
As the year continued, Ramsay’s opinions became more extreme. He said that “Bolshevism is Jewish” and described Adolf Hitler as the only person “who grasped the full significance” of the problems facing the world. Later that year, he openly supported the Nazis in The Times letters column during the Sudetenland Crisis. He took a further step down the path of destruction when he accepted a lunch invitation to the German Embassy on 15th of November 1938.
On 10th of January 1939, Ramsay’s wife, Ismay, made another speech to the Arbroath Business Club. Here, she stated that the British national press was “largely under Jewish control”, and that “…an international group of Jews were behind world revolution in every single country.” Clearly, both husband and wife had gone bonkers. Ramsay later condemned Neville Chamberlain for introducing conscription “at the instigation of the Jews” and claimed that the Conservative Party “relies on Jew money.” By now, both his Association and Central Office were deeply concerned.
In May 1939, Ramsay launched “The Right Club” a secretive cabal aimed at ridding the Conservative Party of “Jewish control”. About 230 people signed up, including William Joyce (later ‘Lord Haw-Haw’), Bristol West M.P. Cyril Culverwell and the Duke of Westminster. When War was declared in September 1939, Ramsay denounced the Jewish Secretary of State for War, Leslie Hore-Belisha, and held secret meetings with Sir Oswald Mosley.
If this repugnant man had stopped his pro-Nazi campaign there, he may have saved himself from imprisonment. Instead, he involved himself in subversion and espionage. A U.S. Embassy Cipher Clerk called Tyler Kent joined the Right Club and started stealing copies of private and confidential telegrams between Churchill and Roosevelt. Some were passed directly onto a German spy in London, whilst others were intended to be read out in Parliament by Ramsay.
Churchill had little choice and on 23rd May 1940 Ramsay was arrested and detained in H.M.P. Brixton under Regulation 18B of the Public Order Act. He was to stay there until 26th of September 1944, before being released. The next day, he rolled up to Parliament and tabled a motion to reinstate Edward I’s 1275 Stature of Jewry. Ramsay did not defend his seat in the 1945 General Election. He faded into obscurity and eventually died ten years later.
What is the relevance of these cases today? Simply that we must learn once again to be vigilant against infiltration by agents of hostile powers. The current Russian and Chinese regimes will buy support wherever they can. However, Russia, with its appeal to false nationalist romanticism and a rejection of modern liberalism, is working hard to cultivate the younger generation of Western conservatives. Already there are some on the internet preaching that they would not fight for the UK. We ignore this at our peril.
