The Economic Crime Bill is now law

Earlier this week parliamentarians sat late into the night to fast-track the Economic Crime Bill into law.

If we are going to discuss this in an open and grown-up manner, it is painfully evident that members of all four of Britain's largest political parties have in the past, for a mix of reasons, been complacent about the threat caused by a number of actively or potentially hostile regimes. 

It is equally evident from the ease with which tough sanctions have passed through parliament that almost everyone on all parties has been jolted out of that complacency. And we need to make sure we don't fall back into it. The measures which have been passed into law through the economic crime bill and others which I hope will also be enacted will need to be strictly enforced both against Putin's cronies and other hostile or corrupt regimes.

With the help of the new Economic Crime Bill the government has now announced new sanctions on more than 370 individuals worth a combined £100 billion as our Economic Crime Act became law, holding Putin’s oligarchs and propagandists to account for their complicity in Russia’s crimes in Ukraine.

  • The  new Economic Crime Act now allows us to go further and fast with our sanctions regime to inflict the strongest possible economic pain on Putin and his cronies. 
  • Yesterday Britain announced sanctions on over 370 more Russian and Belarussian individuals, 51 whom are oligarchs worth over £100 billion, the majority of which have been made possible through our new power, including the Prime Minister, the Defence Minister, and the former President of Russia. In total, we have now sanctioned over 1,000 individuals and entities since Russia’s illegal invasion. 
  • We will keep increasing the pressure on Putin and cut off funding for the Russian war machine as we do all we can to make sure Putin fails. 


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