The Labour Government and Alisher Usmanov
In the latest disturbing news in Arsenal’s ownership struggle, the British government this week stonewalled questions in the Houses of Parliament about Alisher Usmanov, everyone’s favourite obese oligarch.
Jeremy Corbyn: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will publish reports received from British embassies relating to Alisher Usmanov. [158765]
Mr. Jim Murphy: Such information would constitute personal data. A request for personal information brings into play the relevant legislative provisions on data release by the Government and would require the consent of the individual concerned.
Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay asked Her Majesty’s Government:
Whether Mr Alisher Usmanov holds British citizenship, whether honorary or not; and, if so, when and why it was granted. [HL5411]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord West of Spithead): It is the policy of the Border and Immigration Agency not to comment publicly on individual cases.
Given the government has not always followed these policies previously in other cases, Craig Murray asks “is New Labour supporting Usmanov in covering up his past?” Why might they do this? Well, Murray has an idea. “I wonder if Gallagher Holdings, or any of Usmanov’s other companies, will turn out to have made donations or “loans” to New Labour?”
Update: Spy Blog has some interesting commentary on this.
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Thomas Dunmore
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Er…not necessarily.
I wouldn’t have thought there was a country in the world where the government would answer the first question. That would indeed be a breach of privacy.
The second question is more interesting – and the person who asked it must know something (or think he knows something). But it seems unlikely: First of all, I’m not sure the UK *has* honorary citizenship (I can;t find any mention of it by googling although I can’t access wikipedia at the moment so perhaps I’m missing something). In Canada (similar parliamentary background) honorary citizenship can *only* be granted b a unanimous act of Parliament (and has only been granted about six times, most recently last month to Aung San Suu Kyi. If he has got citizenship, it would indeed be a big deal as he has not spent the requisite six years in residence. But that would be hard to keep quiet. A gov’t may not wish to answer a question in Parliament, but an Access to Information request would sort that out fairly quickly.
Wait a minute there. You’re saying no government anywhere would ever publish reports from embassies without the consent of those being reported on? As Murray says on his blog, “That stonewalling answer is, when you think about it, quite astonishing. The government can never tell you about Mugabe, or Slobodan Milosevic, or anyone else, without their consent?”
The Spy Blog writes: Where in the Data Protection Act 1998 (which also impinges on the Section 40 Personal Data exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000), does the statute claim global legal jurisdiction ?
Why should the “personal data” exemptions apply to foreign nationals specifically about their activities outside of the legal jurisdiction of the United Kingdom ?
On the second point, Murray has been told Usmanov has acquired citizenship. Honary citizenship exists in Britain, googling reveals Madonna and Conrad Black as examples!
Madonna and Conrad Black: *excellent* precedents! I would be highly flattered if I were AU.
But do you know the procedure by which it is granted? It seems highly unusual that this kind of thing could be done in private. Normally, the granting of honorary citizenship is meant to be a big, public symbolic deal…very odd, anyway.
As for the question – why should the “personal data” exemptions apply to foreign nationals specifically about their activities outside of the legal jurisdiction of the United Kingdom ?
I know nothing about UK jurisprudence: my familiarity with this subject is based on Canadian law, and our Charter (something the UK obviously doesn’t have) does not permit the govt. to make distinctions between citizens and foreign nationals in matters like these.
And to provide a possible riposte to spyblog: the fact that an Act does not *specify* that it applies to foreign nationals doesn’t mean that it cannot be interpreted to apply to them. This isn’t French law where one can only do what the law says; it’s English law, where one can generally do something unless the law specifically proscribes it.
(Urs will now probably rightly kick my ass for oversimplifying and/or completely mangling that description of legal traditions).
And as for the Mugabe/Milosevic, the government can certainly tell you things which are being done *by their governments*; however, if someone at MI5 got hold of some personal info – say, that suggests that Mugabe has had carnal relations with a sheep – and that someone had cabled London to the effect that Bob and Flossie were now very happy, I can’t see how the public would have a right to know.
Quite apart from the privacy argument, though, is that it would be incredibly irregular for *any* diplomatic correspondence to go public, simply on national interest grounds. Diplomats abroad would have a hard time doing their job if any clown could put in an FOI request for correspondence to and from an embassy – imagine how trade negotiations would go if another party could request access to your negotiating strategy…
I’m not saying there’s nothing to any of this. I suspect Murray is far more right about Usmanov than he is wrong. I’m just saying some of U’s critics occasionally look like they’re grasping at straws.
Consider your ass kicked, Gramsci.
While there is more than kernel of truth in your generalization (crap, do we use North American or British spelling conventions on here?), I don’t see the British government being particularly quick to apply such laws to the likes of De Menzes or the poor formerly British resident schmucks in Guantanamo.
You are correct about diplomatic correspondence, though. I wouldn’t want any of the cables that I wrote at State to be available to White Sox supporting hoi polloi like Tom, let alone to foreign Gooner sympathizers such as yourself.