Idon’t blame readers if they’ve been struggling to follow the China spying case engulfing parliament. Even MPs are finding it hard to keep up with a story that seems to change by the hour.
I suspect many fair-minded people have assumed this story can’t contain much. It seems too implausible for the government to have deliberately let off people who were accused of spying on MPs. There must be another explanation.
But the story is truly astonishing. The layers of it have unravelled over the past few weeks like something from a spy novel — more Slow Horses than James Bond. And The Sunday Times has led the way in uncovering the truth.
The facts of the case are this: two men were arrested and charged with spying on MPs on behalf of China. Crown prosecutors thought they had evidence to convict them. But it seems somebody, somewhere in government collapsed the trial. The bit we haven’t got to the bottom of yet is who, and why.
It’s not a surprise that China is spying on us — we have known about this for years. In fact, MI5 foiled another plot from China only last week. Of course we know that China is a threat. But they are not some distant bogeyman; they are a global power and a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
So, when the Conservatives were in government, we used moderate language about China in public. We kept diplomatic channels open. But we weren’t naive. Our security apparatus were constantly disrupting China’s efforts against the UK and updating ministers on the growing threat. It was for that reason that we introduced a range of laws and reforms to protect the UK. And it is why when our solicitor-general made the decision to prosecute the two suspects in the China case, he did so based on a clear-eyed position about China being a threat to the UK’s security.
But behind the scenes, we were compiling reams of information about the threat that China posed to the UK. Every day the prime minister and other senior ministers got intelligence reports, including from GCHQ, about Chinese cyberattacks, espionage operations and other measures to undermine and damage our security. The present Labour government is trying to pretend files don’t exist — but they do. I’ve seen them.
When we left office last year, as far as we were concerned this spying case was being prosecuted. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was calling it a “slam dunk”. Then last month, seemingly out of nowhere, the case was dropped. The two men, Chris Cash and Christopher Berry, deny the charges.
At first the government claimed it was surprised. But then, in an unprecedented intervention, the CPS went public — saying that for months the government had been refusing to provide the evidence they needed about China’s threat. Only when the prosecutors gave up hope of ever getting it did they abandon the trial.
In the weeks since, the government’s story has changed four times. Its panicked flurry of finger-pointing has fired off in all directions, and one by one their stories have collapsed.
We now know the prime minister was made aware the case was failing and did nothing to intervene. His gut instinct was not how to protect our national security, but how this could be pinned on the Conservatives.
Keir Starmer went as far as deliberately misquoting ex-ministers — such as the former foreign secretary James Cleverly — in the House of Commons, leading to gasps of astonishment on the floor of the house.
But the government’s story has been torn apart by two former heads of MI6, two former heads of the civil service, and the former director of public prosecutions. Desperate to pin this on anyone but himself, Starmer’s latest excuse is to blame civil servants working under him.
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When the CPS asked the government for more evidence on China’s threat to support the case, the government instead added paragraphs saying that China presents lots of opportunities.
Curiously, this text had been lifted straight from the Labour Party manifesto. I’ve known civil servants refuse to insert a comma if they thought it political.
Yet they claim that at no point, did the prime minister, any government minister, or any political appointment (including the national security adviser) have any involvement in this decision, or in fact, any involvement in the case at all.
First, if this is true, then it’s really not the defence Keir Starmer thinks it is. Absolving himself of involvement in a matter of national security and allowing unelected civil service to run the country is not the strong leadership Britain wants or needs.
But this version of events is so implausible, and would be so utterly incompetent, that I suspect there must be more to it. I suspect, that just as we were told there was nothing to see with Peter Mandelson and Angela Rayner, once you start pulling on the thread the whole thing will unravel.
I have been the business secretary. I have seen the pressure that China puts on ministers. I have seen how hard Beijing works to further its political and economic interests, and I have seen which buttons they press … or try to press.
It’s why I didn’t go to China as a minister. And it’s why for years the Conservative government took a cautious approach to Chinese influence. But when Labour came into office, they wanted to do things differently.
They watered down Britain’s China policy, and Starmer appointed Jonathan Powell as his national security adviser — a figure from the Blair years with known links to China.
I am sure that like Henry II and Thomas Becket, Starmer — or at least Powell — was storming round Whitehall saying “who will rid me of this troublesome court case?” They did nothing to help it and everything to signal they didn’t want it.
For example, China is now looking for permission to build a new super embassy in London, and this week the government delayed that decision until December to avoid granting it in the middle of this spy scandal.
Then you’ve got the case of Jingye, the Chinese company that owned British Steel until Labour nationalised it. Rachel Reeves is being chased for £1 billion in compensation, but reports are that China this could make this go away under the right circumstances.
There is nothing particularly unusual in China trying to exert its influence on Britain. But what Starmer doesn’t realise is that regimes like China respond to strength, not weakness.
If Britain is weak, we will be taken advantage of. And if our parliament can be spied on, and no one is held accountable, we have lost more than a court case. We will lose the ability to keep British people safe, along with the respect and trust of our allies. The government will keep trying to sweep this under the rug. And because it’s complicated and people aren’t paying attention, they might get away with it. But someone needs to come clean about what happened here.
For Britain’s national security, we need to get to the bottom of the story. And the Conservatives won’t stop digging until we do.
