Lord Cameron makes embarrassing Labour admission to hoax caller

Lord Cameron told a hoax phone caller that Labour would be just as “enthusiastic” in its support for Ukraine as the Tories.

The Foreign Secretary was hoodwinked into taking a call from a Russian prankster pretending to be a former Ukrainian president.

In a video of the prank call, Lord Cameron said Labour would “continue” the current Government’s approach.

He thought he was speaking to Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian president between 2014 and 2019, who has remained a prominent figure in the country since leaving office.

Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, has suggested in the election campaign that Labour support for Kyiv would not be as strong because Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has not set a timetable towards defence spending increasing to 2.5 per cent.

Interviewed by The Telegraph last week, Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, said: “Look how strong we have been supporting Ukraine, making sure we are providing strength and moral courage to the rest of Europe on defence. I don’t think Labour will do that.”

Earlier in June, the Government made the hoax call public knowledge to stave off any attempts to manipulate video footage of the former prime minister from the communications.

‘Straight from the Kremlin playbook’

The Foreign Office said the perpetrators behind the call were “clearly Russian”, adding that “disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook”.

Asked by the imposter if he believed anything would change after the general election, Lord Cameron said: “The opposition party is as enthusiastic about defending Ukraine and helping Ukraine as the Conservative Party.

“I don’t think you’ll see change. Obviously if they win it will be a new government, there will be some getting up to speed on some issues, but I think fundamentally they’ve supported everything we’ve done.”

He added: “I think the Labour Party, if they win, will continue that approach.”

The caller also suggested that David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, did not have much experience.

Lord Cameron replied: “No that’s true but I think the British policy is fixed.”

Asked about his engagement with Donald Trump, the former US president and current presidential candidate, Lord Cameron said the Republican would want to “back the winning side” in Ukraine but his attitude was “hard to predict”.

He said: “I had dinner with [Trump] and my aim was to convince him not to block money for Ukraine, because obviously the speaker, Mike Johnson, wanted two things: he wanted to vote the money for Ukraine but he also wanted to keep his job, and I thought it was important to try to make sure that Trump backed him sufficiently to do that, which is what happened in the end.”

He said: “I think ultimately [Trump] will calculate at the time what’s right for him.

“I think the key thing is if we can make sure that Ukraine is on the front foot and Putin is on the back foot by November [2024], then he will want to support the winning side, as it were, and that’s what we’ve got to ensure.

“It’s hard to predict exactly what his attitude will be but that’s the most important thing.”

Elsewhere in the video, the imposter can be heard saying that not sending Ukraine an invitation to Nato is a “bad signal”.

In response, Lord Cameron said: “There’s not going to be an invitation because America won’t support one.

“So what I’ve said to the president, [Volodymyr] Zelensky, is: let’s try and get the best language we can about Nato support for Ukraine. But don’t, let’s not, we mustn’t have an argument between Nato and Ukraine before the summit.”

Later in the video, Lord Cameron disclosed a conversation he had with Murat Nurtleum, the Kazakhstan foreign secretary, during a visit to the country earlier in 2024.

‘Ukrainians are dying for Kazakhstan’

Lord Cameron said: “Kazakhstan is convinced that Putin wants a slice of the north of Kazakhstan.

“[Mr Nurtleu] said Ukrainians are dying for Kazakhstan, they are putting their lives at risk to hold back Russia and that benefits us.”

At the end of the call, the imposter said: “Thank you, my friend. It was nice to see you again, and I remember our first meeting with Lord Hague and Bernard and Lily Vie.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “As you know, we made public the fact that this call happened weeks ago, to do the right thing and make sure others were warned of the risk at the earliest opportunity.

“The Foreign Secretary understood this was a private call with a Ukrainian politician.

“This is clearly Russian, and is standard practice for information operations.

“Disinformation is a tactic straight from the Kremlin playbook to try to distract from their illegal activities in Ukraine and the human rights abuses being committed there.”