Plan to exempt China spies from toughest security laws branded ‘humiliating’ for UK

Plan to exempt China spies from toughest security laws branded ‘humiliating’ for UK



Posted by theipaper

9 comments

  1. Ministers face questions in parliament over the [expected decision](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/chinese-spies-exempt-toughest-national-security-law-starmer-3512732?ico=in-line_link) by the government to exempt China from the toughest restrictions of the UK’s new spying laws.

    MPs from both sides of the House have raised concerns over the likely move not to place Beijing in the enhanced tier of the [Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (FIRS)](https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/starmer-soft-china-delaying-security-law-3235101?srsltid=AfmBOoqEfMhXrxHQTO5wHWo-eaCtzQdKvB3pbi4UVpDVQSzcj_FOze_n&ico=in-line_link), revealed by *The i Paper* on Friday.

    Sources said Russia and Iran will be included in the upper tier, which will be published shortly following sign-off from Downing Street, but China will not.

    Senior Labour and Conservative MPs are expected to criticise the move in parliament, amid concerns that Sir Keir Starmer’s government is trying to avoid a stand-off with Beijing in order to pursue its goals on economic growth.

    Former Conservative leader and cabinet minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith described the expected decision as “humiliating” and that it overrode concerns over espionage, national security and human rights abuses.

    Duncan Smith, who is one of several British MPs and peers to be sanctioned by Beijing, told *The i Paper*: “At the moment the government is going helter skelter down a road out of control. China has complete control of this policy shift by the government.

    “They have got themselves in a panic because they are desperate about growth.”

    Starmer’s government, including Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, have made efforts to rekindle UK relations with China since winning power last July.

    Reeves used a visit to the country earlier this month to drum up trade and investment, which she said was “crucial” to economic growth.

    Duncan Smith added: “The Treasury always pulls the same note out of the bag, which is ‘you have to go and develop a way to do business with China’. Every Chancellor gets that.

    “They are so desperate for both economic growth and to achieve net zero targets, which cancel each other out by the way, that they will take anything [from China].

    “It is a case of we are on our faces begging them to help us. It is humiliating.”

    The Labour MP and chair of the international development committee Sarah Champion said she would also be raising concerns.

    She wrote on X in response to the expected decision: “What madness is this?? I’ve had Chinese spy-wear on my parliamentary computer & every defence briefing since becoming an MP says China & Russia are our 2 biggest threats! Now we’re exempting their spies from new national security law?”

  2. Duncan Smith can do one. And don’t worry, Prince Andrew will keep an eye on the Chinese spies for us.

  3. If this doesn’t prove Starmer and Reeves are in China’s back pockets nothing will. Plus it will definitely make Trump bring tariffs down on us. They are a pair of buffoons.

  4. How can the Tories have a leg to stand on? They literally put a KGB agent’s son in to the House of Lords.
    Plus they haven’t named or released any info on an investigation around their Russian funding in previous elections.

  5. This is the kind of thing that Trump & Musk will have a good point about

  6. Can we ban news accounts from posting? They’ve got a website, if we want to look at it we will do. This is slowly becoming a news advert forum.

  7. FFS give it a rest! The most severe restictions are on countries like Russia and Iran who are currently actively hostile to the UK. We are still trading with China and we have no current major dispute with China. This “China spies are exempt” stuff is just silly right-wing propaganda.

  9. So there’s no exception we just haven’t said which tier we are putting the Chinese into.

    Like Jesus journalism must be in a real fucking state of this is the headlines we are producing

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