Interconnector backer threatens legal action

One of the backers of a controversial plan for a new interconnector between France and the UK has threatened legal action within weeks against Kwasi Kwarteng’s decision to block the project.

The business and energy secretary announced last week that he had refused planning consent for the Aquind project, which would see a 2GW high voltage direct current cable come ashore at Portsmouth and run through the city to a substation on the edge of the South Downs National Park.

Alexander Temerko, an ex-head of Russian oil company Yukos and director of Aquind since 2016, said in an interview with PA Media that a judicial review of what he described as Kwarteng’s “unusual” decision would be launched within weeks.

Temerko, who was born in Ukraine but is now a British citizen, has donated heavily to the Conservative Party and its politicians. He also threatened legal action against trade minister Penny Mordaunt, who has been one of the leaders of the campaign in the Portsmouth area against the project in her capacity as a local MP.

In the run up to last week’s decision, Mordaunt warned the interconnector would diminish the UK’s energy security by increasing the UK’s reliance on cross-Channel imports from France.

Citing French government threats to switch off the interconnectors during last year’s fishing disputes, she said energy supply could become a “bargaining chip” with the UK.

Temerko told PA that Mordaunt is the “biggest threat to security” and a “warmonger”.

He said: “It’s absolutely dreadful if you want to just punish my business, and at the same time she tried to punish all business of interconnectors with France and Europe.

“It’s very unprofessional, she is a threat to security. Penny Mordaunt is the biggest threat to security for our country.”

“We are preparing a judicial review and we are considering action against Penny Mordaunt because there’s something in her statement that was absolutely wrong,” the donor said, adding that the interconnector would reduce energy prices.

Temerko said he was considering writing to Boris Johnson, who he described as a “political friend”.

“She must be silent if she is a minister. If she wants to be an active politician she should resign.”

Kwarteng’s decision overturned the recommendations of the project’s Examining Authority, which said that “significant adverse” effects at the local level were outweighed by the national benefits that the proposed development would deliver in terms of its contribution to a “secure, diverse and affordable energy supply, greater levels of electricity systems interconnection, and further accommodation of decarbonised electricity generation”.

The business and energy secretary criticised the authority for its “failure to adequately consider” alternative connections points for the cable that would avoid the need for it passing through a built-up area.

Labour’s shadow energy minister Alan Whitehead has previously said in the House of Commons that Aquind had given a total of £1.1 million in donations to the Conservative party and “a number” of its MPs.

The company is jointly owned by Alexander Temerko and Viktor Fedotov, who was also an oil company executive in Russia. Fedotov was alleged to have been involved in an embezzlement scheme in the country as part of the Panama Papers investigation by the BBC and the Guardian, accusations which he denied.