Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has been forced to defend Keir Starmer’s cosying up with Chinese President Xi Jinping despite the weekend’s spy row reiterating Beijing’s security threat.
Ms Cooper insisted that the Government will take “strong” action against any national security challenge from China, but defended the need to forge close economic links.
Asked what her message is to the Chinese state following the diplomatic furore, Ms Cooper told the BBC: “We will continue to take a very strong approach to our national security, that includes to any challenge to our national security including to our economic security from China, from other countries around the world, that will always be the approach that we will take.
“Of course, with China we also need to make sure we have that economic interaction, economic co-operation in place as well. So it’s a complex arrangement.”
The row risks raising questions about the Prime Minister’s judgement, coming just one month after Sir Keir Starmer became the first leader to meet with President Xi Jinping since 2018, in a significant thawing of Cino-British relations.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel warned the Government they must be in “no doubt that China represents a threat to the national security of our country”.
“As this case of the spy at the heart of Whitehall has shown, there is substantial evidence that China works to undermine our institutions and the very values which underpin our country,” she said.
“It is in the public interest to know the full facts behind the spy, their motivation and statecraft.
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the hostile incursions of China which have persisted for over a decade and continue to breach trust between our two countries.”
China hawk and former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith told the Express that Sir Keir’s meeting with President Xi raises concerns about the Prime Minister’s judgement.
He said it “also shows China how weak he is”, adding: “His re-invention of Osborne’s failed ‘golden era’ China policy is better named project Kow Tow.”
Sir Iain claimed that China sees Britain as the “soft underbelly” of the five eyes security group composed of the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
Rachel Reeves is set to fly to Beijing in January to resume the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue after a six-year hiatus, just days before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Nigel Farage has now threatened to reveal the name of ‘H6’ in the House of Commons this week, using Parliamentary Privilege to ensure there is no “establishment cover-up”.
Mr Farage argued: “The man should be named immediately, otherwise the whole thing smacks of an establishment cover-up.
“If it’s not resolved in the courts, he should be named in the Commons. It’s clearly in the national interest.”
While MPs have a legal right to use parliamentary privilege to avoid legal injunctions or repercussions, the Speaker has previously warned against its use, particularly on national security matters.
In September last year, Sir Lindsay Hoyle delivered a stern warning not to name a man at the heart of another Chinese spying scandal.
He argued the naming of the individual could prejudice future prosecutions.
He declined to reiterate the same warning yesterday when approached by the Express.
