£350,000 donated to Conservative Party by controversial interconnector AQUIND company, research shows

Research shows AQUIND Ltd donated £350,000 to the Conservative Party between 2018 and 2024, beginning when the AQUIND Interconnector project received Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) status.

Donations to the party spiked before the 2019 general election and increased prior to the 2024 general election. Donations have been made to the party since 2012. AQUIND’s holding company, Offshore Group Newcastle Ltd, and a representative of the company, Alexander Termerko, were significant benefactors.

As well as donations to the national party, AQUIND Ltd and Termerko had donated money to ministers and MPs by either funding their constituency branch or directly to their office.

Among these was Jeremy Hunt, a frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race to replace Theresa May as Prime Minister in 2019. Hunt had received £78,500 in donations from Aquind Ltd between 2019 and 2021.

Termerko, while endorsing Hunt as the “only proper pro-business candidate” for Prime Minister at the time, also maintained contact with other prominent Conservative figures. Termerko’s website shows him photographed at various Conservative conferences, alongside former Conservative PMs such as Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Local Portsmouth MPs and councillors, however, have objected to Termerko and AQUIND Ltd’s proposed interconnector over worries of national security implications for the project. Last year, Portsmouth South’s Stephen Morgan and Portsmouth North’s Amanda met with the minister of defence, Luke Pollard, to voice their concerns over the potentially “murky financing” of the project.

AQUIND Ltd’s two spokespersons, the now-deceased Viktor Fedotov and Alexander Termerko, both have previous links with the Russian government.

Fedotov had previously owned the Russian oil company VNIIST, which took two contracts worth a sum of $143 million with the Russian oil and gas state company Transneft. Files released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reveal that despite this contract, no work was carried out by VNIIST to honor it.

Termerko, on the other hand, worked alongside the Russian Ministry of Defence and helped to establish Voentech, an arms exporting company. Since then, however, he has vocalised his opposition to Putin's government and war in Ukraine.

The AQUIND interconnector project would see power lines laid between Normandy, France, and Portsmouth, England. The proposed lines would be able to both import and export energy between countries as needed, with the capacity to transmit 16 TWh a year – equivalent to 5% of British energy consumption.

The project is currently undergoing review following a High Court overruling of the British government’s rejection of the proposal in 2022. Since its initial proposal in 2016, it has been granted NSIP status and then was formally rejected by Portsmouth City Council and later by national governance.

Prior to 2018, the project would require the approval of the local council. However, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy had granted the project NSIP status – meaning that the matter was sent directly to the British government and no longer required local approval.

Portsmouth City Council, despite this, continues to protest the project over its implications for the local development of infrastructure.

“The project would create problems with planning in the south-east of Portsmouth, because it will produce a ransom strip above the cable to preserve the lines,” says Hugh Mason, Liberal Democrat councillor and cabinet member for planning policy and city development. “We’re very short of development land, so there would be serious problems.”

Meanwhile, local pressure groups in Portsmouth continue to protest AQUIND’s ongoing consideration. Among them is Viola Langley, lead representative of the pressure group STOPAQUIND.

“Our objections at the time (of its proposal) were damages to roads that would cause traffic congestion and damages to the very few green areas Portsmouth had,” said Langley. She continued, "But then we found out about the financing and the background of the company. Then it became a political issue.”

Her group continues to petition national governance to see that the project is rejected, nearly eight years on from when it was first removed from the local authority’s hands. “We don’t know why it is still being considered,” Langley said. She continued, "But what it does tell us is that they (AQUIND) have a lot of influence and power.”