The Ukrainian government has declared a prominent adviser to the leader of Britain’s Labour Party persona non grata, deeming him a threat to Ukraine’s national security.
The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, banned Andrew Murray in June from entering Ukraine for three years, according to an official statement from the SBU issued on Sept. 14 to Ukrainian news site Apostrof, which cooperated with Britain’s Daily Mail on a story about Murray.
Murray “is considered part of Putin’s global propagandist network, selling Russian lies, especially in relation to Crimea and the war in Ukraine’s east,” an unnamed SBU representative also told Apostrof.
“This is not a step we take lightly, and it means that he is considered a potential threat to our national security,” the representative added.
Murray is the chief political adviser of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. A member of the Communist Party of Britain for over 40 years, Murray only joined Labour when Corbyn unexpectedly took the helm of the party in 2016.
The adviser was recently revealed to be working for Corbyn without a security clearance, which had been delayed by “vetting problems,” the Daily Mail reported, citing a senior parliamentary source.
In the 1980s, Murray worked for the Soviet Novosti news agency, and has been criticized as an apologist for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
In 2014, after the EuroMaidan Revolution, Murray took a prominent role in launching a campaign called Solidarity with the Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine.
According to photos and a post on the campaign’s site, Murray spoke at the organization’s opening meeting in London, which also featured the head of Russia’s Institute of Globalization and Social Movements, Boris Kagarlitsky, and Sergei Kirichuk from the radical Ukrainian leftist organization Borotba.
On its site, the movement says it opposes “UK and Western governments’ backing of the far-right regime” in Kyiv.
Murray is also the founder of the the left wing Stop the War coalition, which was previously chaired by Corbyn. In July 2014, an article published on the group’s website compared the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 that month over Ukraine — broadly attributed to Russia or its proxies in the region — to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which sparked World War I.
Later, leaked emails from the Kremlin indicated it had instructed its proxies to push the same narrative, the Daily Mail reported.
“Andrew completely rejects the suggestion of being part of a so-called propaganda network and is a frequent critic of Putin and his government,” a representative of Murray told the newspaper. “He has never been to Ukraine, nor has any plans to visit the country.”
