Dutch Investigative Website Says FvD International Leader FIts Model of “KGB Enabler”

Fol­low the Mon­ey (FTM,) a Dutch inves­tiga­tive web­site, has pub­lished an exten­sive pro­file of John Laugh­land, a leader in the Dutch nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty, the FvD. Accord­ing to the FTM arti­cle sum­ma­ry, Laugh­land is judged to fit the mod­el of a KGB “Enabler:” [Trans­lat­ed from Dutch using DeepL]

Octo­ber 29, 2022 ‘Putin’s agent’, ‘impor­tant thinker of our time’, ‘par­ty ide­o­logue’. Sev­er­al stamps have now been left on the British John Laugh­land: the new leader of Forum for Democ­ra­cy Inter­na­tion­al. But who is this con­ser­v­a­tive who has been argu­ing for years for less EU, less NATO and more nation state? And what ties does he have with Rus­sia? We fol­lowed his tracks and end­ed up with the time-hon­oured strate­gies of the KGB.

Why this article?

Since Rus­sia invad­ed Ukraine, the finan­cial flows to and from Rus­sia have been viewed more crit­i­cal­ly. This also applies to out­spo­ken pro-Russ­ian and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic views that are often expressed online and on social media. Although source, pur­pose and fund­ing are often unclear, there is evi­dence that the Russ­ian state is spread­ing pro-Russ­ian, anti-EU and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic posi­tions through insti­tu­tions affil­i­at­ed with them, with the aim of sow­ing divi­sion in West­ern coun­tries and increas­ing Russ­ian influence.

This is what the arti­cle is about:

• The research shows that Laugh­land fits exact­ly into the method with which the KGB already recruit­ed ‘enablers’: peo­ple who are not active agents, but who spread pro-Russ­ian infor­ma­tion through their views and publications.
• In the begin­ning of his career, the Briton wrote for The Guardian and oth­er renowned media, nowa­days he per­forms in Russ­ian media and is a guest lec­tur­er at the Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium (MCC) in Budapest. In 1997 he pub­lished The Taint­ed Source, one of his most influ­en­tial books.
• Laugh­land is in an inter­na­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive net­work that has direct ties to pro-Krem­lin ideologues.
• Thier­ry Baudet prais­es Laugh­land as ‘one of the great­est thinkers’. Laugh­land has long been regard­ed as a par­ty ide­o­logue of Forum for Democ­ra­cy and was appoint­ed direc­tor of the inter­na­tion­al branch of this par­ty in the sum­mer of 2022: Forum for Democ­ra­cy International.

Read the rest here (free reg­is­tra­tion required)

In Sep­tem­ber, the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed that Laugh­land spoke at the open­ing of the Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium (MCC) in Budapest, where he is cur­rent­ly a guest lec­tur­er. In a GIOR report on the Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Alliance, the MCC was iden­ti­fied as a Hun­gar­i­an edu­ca­tion facil­i­ty asso­ci­at­ed with the gov­ern­ment of Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán, Rus­si­a’s clos­est part­ner in the EU. Ear­li­er this month, we report­ed that Laugh­land authored an arti­cle for the US-based Ron Paul Insti­tute for Peace and Pros­per­i­ty (RPIPP)  in which he attempt­ed to cast doubt on the idea that the Rus­sians were like­ly behind the recent sus­pect­ed sab­o­tage of the Nord­stream 2 gas pipelines and redi­rect blame onto the Unit­ed States. The RPIPP has been described in US media  as com­prised of “Anti-Semi­tes, 9/11 Truthers, and Dic­ta­tor Lovers.”