“Pecunia non olet.” “Money has no smell”. Whatever its truth in the Rome of Emperor Vespasian, current events should have disabused the British political and financial establishment of the truth of this. Money smells. And how. And its stench lingers. As Britain is now finding out. 

For years, as I set out here, Britain has opened its financial sector, its property market, its citizenship, its legal system, its political parties, its honours and its society to those with wealth, the more the better. It has placed few restrictions or requirements on those wishing to buy property here or a British passport or set up a charity or educate their children or buy access to senior politicians, particularly Tory ones. Universities, football clubs and others have rushed to get sponsorship and donations. Its wealth management sector has fallen over itself to manage the wealth of oligarchs and ex-civil servants on modest salaries who have managed – doubtless through much scrimping – to accumulate vast savings. Despite an equally large compliance sector and miles of due diligence procedures, few have really asked probing questions about how these geese got so fat. Nor whether it is wise to sell oneself so comprehensively to countries with little regard for honesty, the rule of law or democracy, countries with a long history of widespread corruption, bribery and theft of public at the highest levels of public life, countries with a history of sponsoring terrorism and violence.

Britain has often been described as “perfidious Albion”. Perhaps its real crime is to be woefully naïve about why so many rich people and entities from countries with long histories of violent authoritarianism and repression wish to lavish the British establishment with money. It has been too willing to believe that it has been exercising “soft power” when in reality it has shown itself to be soft in the head. 

What has this open welcome got Britain really? British citizenship sold to the highest bidder – a measure quietly reversed last week. A party in government dependant on money from a country currently bombing a sovereign European nation fighting for its life with British weapons. A reluctance to impose sanctions on Russia because this might harm a financial sector grown fat on money from dubious sources. A property market in London divorced from reality and shutting out many of those who work and live in it, unless they belong to the class of those servicing the ultra rich. A Royal charity set up by the heir to the throne being investigated by the police for selling honours. The so-called great and the good falling over themselves to shill for foreign powers, sit as directors on their entities and act as their “useful idiots” while claiming that they are developing friendships. A reputation as a key money and reputation-laundering centre – Londongrad. See the Chatham House report on this here – Or what Parliament’s own Intelligence and Security Committee wrote – “This level of integration – in ‘Londongrad’ in particular – means that any measures now being taken by the Government are not preventative but rather constitute damage limitation.”

Damage limitation. We should be shamed by such words. It is not just Russia which is the problem. The same could be said of Qatar. Or Saudi Arabia – currently carrying out a vicious war in Yemen. Or China – repressing freedom in Hong Kong and destroying the Uighurs.

Meanwhile we shut our borders to Ukrainian refugees, the Home Office determined to stick to the strict letter of the  law even as Ukrainian women and children hide in tube stations and fathers go to fight, not knowing if they will see their families again. Unlike Ireland which has waived the requirements for visas or Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungry which have opened their borders to Ukrainian refugees. Britain is helping Ukraine with intelligence and military equipment. This is to its credit. It may well be doing more which it is not making public. But why is the Britain which once gave refuge to Poles when their country was invaded by Germany and Russia, which welcomed Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks when the Soviet Union so beloved of Putin sought to crush their freedoms in 1956 and 1968 now being so ungenerous to Ukrainians fleeing for their lives? 

It is long past the time for a serious reckoning with those who have caused such damage to Britain’s reputation: those who have facilitated it and those who have turned a blind eye. And it is time now for generosity to fellow Europeans enduring what no country, what no people should have to endure. We did it before. We should do it again. This is what Global Britain should mean.

Cyclefree