Politics

Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson blasts 'defamatory' claims he was a 'Czech spy'


Veteran Labour MP Geoffrey Robinson has blasted “highly defamatory and false” claims he was a Cold War spy for communist Czechoslovakia.

The Mail on Sunday reported that, according to documents from the Czech archives, Mr Robinson passed information to the StB state security service for three years during the 1960s.

The material was said to have included highly sensitive details relating to Britain’s Polaris nuclear deterrent as well as NATO briefing notes.

But in a furious statement, the MP’s spokesman rubbished the accusations and branded them “a lie”.

“These allegations are highly defamatory and false and Mr Robinson strongly refutes them,” the spokesman said.

“The allegations, which are apparently based on documents put together by Czech authorities in the 1960s, are a complete fabrication.

Geoffrey Robinson denies the allegations

“The translation of the only document that Mr Robinson has been shown, a partial document dated February 19, 1974, does not support the claims.

“It describes him as ‘concurrently a Secretary to the Minister of Defence.. Mr (Denis) Healey’.

“He was never a secretary to Mr Healey.

“At the end of the document, it states ‘these moments were neither proven nor clarified’ so even on its face this document is not proof that such activity took place.

 

“The allegations allegedly made by the Czech authorities are a lie.

“At no time did Mr Robinson ever pass confidential government documents or information to any foreign agent and he did not have access to such material.”

At the time of the alleged contacts, Mr Robinson – now aged 80 – was said to have been working in the research department at Labour Party headquarters at Transport House.

He subsequently went on to work for the newly-formed Industrial Reorganisation Corporation – then Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s attempt to restructure British industry.

According to documents reported by the Mail, between 1966 and 1969 he held 51 meetings with a Czech handler, during the course of which he was said to have passed on 87 pieces of intelligence.

Geoffrey Robinson was Paymaster General under Tony Blair

He was said to have been given the codename Karko and the material he handed over was said to include information relating to plans to upgrade the Polaris weapons system and the withdrawal of British troops from West Germany.

Mr Robinson – who went onto become Paymaster General in Tony Blair ’s Government and spearheaded last year’s successful Mirror campaign to switch to an organ donations opt-out system, dubbed Max and Keira’s Law – was said to have attracted the interest of the StB, in part because of the access they believed he had access to Foreign Secretary George Brown and Defence Secretary Denis Healey.

Last year the Labour Party said claims that Jeremy Corbyn had either been a collaborator or an agent of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s were “absurd and hallucinogenic” and had come from a single source.

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