David Cameron lobbied Saudis on behalf of Lex Greensill
Ex-British PM David Cameron was a paid adviser to Australian Lex Greensill when he lobbied a controversial Saudi crown prince.
Former British prime minister David Cameron went on a desert camping trip to lobby Mohammed bin Salman only months after the Saudi crown prince ordered the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Mr Cameron was invited on the trip in his role as a paid adviser and lobbyist for the billionaire Australian financier Lex Greensill, whose company Greensill Capital collapsed this month.
At the time of the trip early last year a United Nations report had already found “credible links” between the crown prince and the murder of Khashoggi in October 2018. The United States has since formally announced that bin Salman approved the killing.
Details of the trip emerged as Labour said that it had been handed a business card dating from Mr Greensill’s time working as an adviser in the Cabinet Office, suggesting that he worked directly with Mr Cameron while he was prime minister. The card describes Mr Greensill as a “senior adviser” in the prime minister’s office and includes a Downing Street email address.
Labour said that the card was handed to a figure in industry in the summer of 2012 by Mr Greensill shortly after he was appointed as an unpaid “supply chain finance adviser” in the Cabinet Office.
Mr Cameron has never commented on his contacts with Mr Greensill during his premiership.
He has also not spoken about his time advising Greensill after he left Downing Street.
The Saudi trip came as Greensill Capital was looking to expand its business operations in the kingdom and win lucrative contracts with government enterprises. Sources suggested that the trip was facilitated by the Japanese multinational Softbank, which had taken a stake in Greensill and was also keen to increase its business in Saudi Arabia. The desert is used by the Saudi royal family to entertain VIPs that they particularly want to impress. Feasts can be served in banquet halls or half-open tents while guests sit on cushions. Many princes use the freedom away from the cities to entertain lavishly without the constraints of conservative traditions.
The Financial Times, which first reported the Cameron meeting, said that Mr Greensill had boasted about the trip, telling one person that he had bonded under the night sky with the Saudi royal over the fact that the two men had studied law at university.
The newspaper cited flight records for Greensill Capital’s four private aircraft showing a series of trips to Saudi Arabia in the first three months of last year. Mr Cameron is also believed to have used Greensill’s corporate jets extensively. Flight records for one of the aircraft show numerous trips to and from Newquay airport, which is about half an hour’s drive from Mr Cameron’s holiday home in Cornwall.
The latest revelations will increase the pressure on Mr Cameron to explain his involvement in the finance company following revelations that he had lobbied the government to give it access to COVID loans. He has yet to comment publicly on any aspect of his arrangement with Greensill or how much he was paid to act on its behalf.
Labour has demanded “urgent answers from Cameron and from the government” about Greensill’s contacts with senior government figures.
Anneliese Dodds, the shadow chancellor, said that the emergence of the business card “raises further serious questions about the special access Lex Greensill was granted to the heart of government”. She added: “The public have a right to know what happened here. We need a full, transparent and thorough investigation.”
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, told Sky News that Mr Cameron did “absolutely nothing wrong” in his work with the finance company.
The Times
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