Pressure is mounting on Sir Keir Starmer and his government after the collapse of a high-profile case involving allegations of Chinese espionage. One insider has now revealed what he claimed was a “stratospheric f***-up” in the heart of Whitehall.
The disintegration of the case against two men accused of passing sensitive information to the Chinese state dramatically just weeks before trial, has triggered intense political controversy and demands for transparency. Posting on X, Steve Swinford, Political Editor of The Times, referring to the Spectator’s Tim Shipman, said: “As is often the case the great @ShippersUnbound and I are fishing in same pond. He reveals in The Spectator that Chinese interests purchased the data hub used by Whitehall departments to exchange information – including on highly classified projects.
“A source tells him that the episode was a ‘stratospheric f***-up’.
“Sources also tell him that the MoD and Downing Street were both hacked.”
Sir Keir has admitted he was aware of the impending failure for two days but chose not to intervene, while facing accusations from opposition figures that his Labour administration mishandled the matter, though he pledged to publish key witness statements and evidence to address public concerns.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the case collapsed because the Government’s evidence did not show that China represented a threat to national security at the time of the alleged offences.
However, the Prime Minister insisted the “substantive” evidence was submitted under the Conservatives and supplementary statements handed to the CPS subsequently reflected the Tory administration’s position.
The fallout has fuelled debates over whether the collapse stemmed from a semantic muddle in legal classifications, inadequate prior labeling of China as a security threat under the previous Tory government, or undue pressure from Beijing, intensifying scrutiny on UK-China relations amid broader fears of foreign interference.
Meanwhile the Cabinet Office has rejected Dominic Cummings’s claim that China breached high-level systems used to transfer the most sensitive government information.
The former adviser to Boris Johnson had said that he and the then-Prime Minister were told about a breach in 2020 and that it involved so-called Strap material, a government classification for highly sensitive intelligence material.
He said: “The Strap system was compromised. All sorts of systems were compromised. Fundamental infrastructure for transferring the most sensitive data around the British state was compromised for a long time. For years.”
The Cabinet Office rejected the allegation, saying: “It is untrue to claim that the systems we use to transfer the most sensitive government information have been compromised.”
Mr Cummings did not say how the system had been breached but that he would be willing to share what he knew with MPs if they were to hold an inquiry.
He said that “vast amounts” of data classified as “extremely secret and extremely dangerous for any foreign entity to control” had been compromised.
He said: “Material from intelligence services. Material from the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. Things the government has to keep secret. If they’re not secret, then there are very, very serious implications for it.”
Mr Cummings called it “absolutely puerile nonsense” to suggest that whether to define China as a threat is a “difficult semantic question”.
He added: “Anyone who has been read in at a high level with the intelligence services on China knows that the word threat doesn’t even begin to cover it.”