MI5 warn MPs about Chinese spies...a bit too late?
The UK let a spy case slip through its hands, exposing serious deficiencies
The collapse of the alleged China spy case exposed serious deficiencies in the UK’s national security settings when it comes to dealing with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
It triggered much finger-pointing between Labour, the Conservatives and the Crown Prosecution Service that centred on whether China is a declared ‘enemy’ of Britain and whether that definition applied when Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher and teacher Christopher Berry were arrested and charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act, in April 2024.
Both were accused of supplying information to Chinese intelligence. But the episode ended with two alleged spies walking free.
It was a dire and embarrassing outcome for everyone involved. The only upside has been the total shock it has delivered to the system and the Labour government.
It also exposed, once again, how Labour continues to pay for the price for depending almost solely on simply not being the imploding Tory party ahead of last year’s election and doing very little policy work to prepare itself for one of goverment’s most complex challenges — balancing the increasingly aggressive rise of China.
Starmer even had a ban on doing foreign media interviews, where he would have given himself the opportunity to road-test a response to some of these thorny issues, compared to the highly-controlled UK political press media he did and continues to do in Number 10.
In opposition, Labour berated the Conservatives for shifting from their Golden Era 2015 China settings to one that was dramatically tougher by the time it left office in 2024. Noting the Conservatives’ schizophrenic and often untidy approach might have been fine if Labour itself hadn’t cut-and-pasted the model.
On one hand, David Lammy, now sacked from the role but promoted upwards to Deputy Prime Minister alongside Justice Secretary and the highly capable Defence Secretary John Healey, was promising that they would not be complacent about the threat China posed.
On the other hand, Catherine West, the equally short-lived Asia Minister, was openly stating that the UK needed Chinese trade to save it from its Brexit-imposed poverty and food banks.
The true metric is the policy decisions that Labour has taken since coming to office.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer agreed, after Chinese President Xi Jinping raised it during their first phone call, to reopen China’s bid to build a huge embassy near London’s financial district.
The government buried its China audit, citing high classification. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves flew to Beijing and returned with a paltry £600 million in trading and investment opportunities over five years and restarted an economic dialogue that had been put in the freezer after the CCP launched their security crackdown on Hong Kong.
In opposition, Lammy promised to recognise the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide. But the government now refers to that as a ‘human rights situation.’
Finally and most revealing, it chose to exclude China from its ‘enhanced tier’ on the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS) that began this July. Placing China on the enhanced tier would have required anyone working on behalf of the CCP to meet higher levels of disclosure about their work.
As a result of the jolt from the collapse of the spy case, though, some of this could change.
On Tuesday, MI5 distributed a Security Service Espionage Alert on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) tradecraft and methodology that focused on how Chinese spies target members of the UK Parliament.
It named two ‘headhunters’ posing as recruiters on LinkedIn, Amanda Qiu and Shirley Shen, who claimed to work for BP-YR Executive Search and Internship Union, respectively. The Speakers of the House of Commons and the House of Lords emailed Members and Peers, drawing their attention to the alert and ways MPs could protect themselves and inform security services about untoward activity.
Aside from naming the two ‘headhunters’, MI5’s alert contained many common-sense, run-of-the-mill pieces of advice for operating online, meaning the very act of ‘outing’ the recruiters that generated widespread media coverage and forced the Chinese government to respond was perhaps more the point.
Dan Jarvis, the Security Minister, told the House of Commons he was launching a ‘counter political interference and espionage action plan,’ the core of which would focus on tightening rules around electoral donations.
This failed to satisfy MPs who repeatedly questioned him about toughening up the UK’s policies towards the CCP.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP who employed Cash and is a China hawk, led the way.
‘We urge the Government to put China in the enhanced tier of the FIR scheme. In opposition, Labour supported our National Security Act 2023, yet in government, it refuses to use it as it was designed. That is perverse. Why vote for a defensive tool, only to leave it on the shelf when we are under threat?’ Kearns said.
She further urged Jarvis to refuse planning permission for the proposed new embassy.
Jarvis did not rule out either outcome.
‘We are looking closely at whether it is necessary to make further additions to the enhanced tier, but I can say to the Honourable Lady that no decision has yet been made with regard to China specifically,’ Jarvis said.
‘The Honourable Lady also asked me about the embassy. There has been much discussion about that matter in this place, and we are moving towards a point of decision.
‘She will understand that that is not a decision for me; it will be made by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government in a quasi-judicial capacity.
‘As a consequence of that, I am limited in what I can say. However, as I have said previously, I can say that national security has been the core priority throughout.’
Let’s see.
But what followed was notable. MPs from the Conservatives, governing Labour Party, Scottish National Party, Democratic Unionist Party, Liberal Democrats and Reform all rose to voice a litany of complaints and further decisions they wanted to see imposed aimed at restricting Chinese influence and purchase in the UK.
These ranged from requests to keep the devolved government in Scotland better educated on China, banning Chinese-made and data-hungry electric cars from being used by officials and the military, better protection for the Hong Kongers living in the UK and more work on shoring up access to critical minerals over which China has a near monopoly.
The UK is most definitely and unforgivably playing catch-up when it comes to protecting itself from Chinese interference. And the British civil service and Labour government have been found wanting on their inconsistencies. But the strength of the cross-party support for a tougher calibration was a promising sight, particularly if the settings are to endure beyond the government of the day.