China spying bombshell could be the end of Keir Starmer | UK | News

Jonathan Powell has halted a major Whitehall investigation into Chinese espionage following pressure from the Treasury, The Telegraph reports.

Sources told the newspaper that Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser called in June for the Government to suppress details about the Foreign Office’s spying under Chinese control.

The bombshell decision came after Treasury officials warned that providing public information using “comprehensive” analysis of China’s influence in the UK could disrupt trade and investment links. The news comes as Starmer’s former senior civil servant Simon Case is embroiled in the Chinese spying fiasco over an apparent ‘threat’.

The Prime Minister is currently under fire for revealing the full extent of China’s pressure on the UK. In a dramatic development earlier this week, the UK attorney general said the case against two alleged spies had collapsed because the Government had failed to brand the country a threat to national security.

The Express has reached out to Number 10 Downing Street for comment.

Details of Chinese hold deliberately concealed

The Telegraph has revealed that intelligence collected under Chinese supervision, a Whitehall-wide analysis of Britain’s relationship with Beijing, was deliberately kept secret due to fears of retaliation from China.

Shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “This is yet another example of cover-up and collusion within the Labor Government when it comes to foreign policy and China. When it comes to national security, Labor clearly cannot be trusted.”

During a trip to India on Thursday, the Prime Minister said no minister was involved in the decision last month to drop the case of alleged spies Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry.

The Labor leader did not deny Mr Powell’s involvement, despite Downing Street previously insisting he was not responsible for decisions about evidence in the case.

Mr. Powell’s predecessor as national security adviser, Mark Sedwill, said the decision to drop the case was “very difficult to understand.”

Labour’s broken manifesto promise

The Labor Party first promised to monitor its relations with China in its election manifesto last year. Voters were told the report would “improve the UK’s ability to understand and respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by China”.

Following Labour’s election victory, the Foreign Office interviewed hundreds of witnesses between October 2024 and June this year to uncover the “full spectrum of threats” to the UK, including espionage and cyber attacks.

The investigation involved secret evidence from Britain’s intelligence services and was designed to provide a comprehensive document on Chinese activities in the UK that could be used across the Government.

The then foreign secretary, David Lammy, had promised that the investigation would be “comprehensive”. MPs had expected the Government to release redacted details of the audit into the national security threat from China over the summer.

Treasury complaints killed publication

But after complaints from the Treasury, Mr. Powell decided to include the report in the National Security Strategy (NSS), a separate document published in June, according to people familiar with the process.

When published, the strategy contained only two paragraphs on Chinese control. Mr Lammy made a brief statement to the House of Commons in which MPs criticized him for leaving them “in the dark”.

Alternative options for publishing details of the audit, including an executive summary that would have included more detail about Chinese spying in the UK, are understood to have been vetoed by the national security team at the Cabinet Office.

The government has not denied these claims, but a spokesman said certain details had been changed for national security reasons.

Whitehall has refused to publish expert evidence submitted to the Chinese audit on how the UK should improve relations with Beijing, but has instead published responses to its handling of the process.

Experts wanted it to be published

A wire analysis of 42 pieces of written evidence submitted in May showed dozens of people calling for the Chinese-controlled findings to be published at least in part and for sensitive sections to be removed.

Charles Parton, a former diplomat who was supposed to testify in the collapsed spy case, said in a presentation on the audit that it should lead to the publication of the China strategy.

“It is important to clearly publicize the strategy: business, academia, society at large and the Chinese need to know where the UK stands in its relations with China,” he said.

Mr Powell’s National Security Strategy recommended that the UK engage “directly and at a high level” with China to create a “reciprocal and balanced economic relationship”.

MPs were left in the dark

Mr Lammy also told MPs on June 24 about Chinese control, saying “China’s power is an inescapable reality” and saying the UK had “no option” not to engage with Beijing.

His watchdogs on parliament’s foreign affairs committee criticized his statement because it gave little detail about the threat China poses to Britain.

Emily Thornberry, who chairs the committee, said in July that “Parliament and the public are left with more questions than answers”.

“We are working in the dark right now,” he said. “We understand that sensitive matters need to be kept confidential, but the Government must get the balance right.”

Chinese officials met with Powell a day before the announcement

The Telegraph reported that Mr Lammy’s statement came a day after senior Chinese Communist Party officials met with Mr Powell and UK business leaders in Whitehall.

Yuan Jiajun, a senior member of the party politburo, led a Chinese delegation to Britain to meet Mr Powell on June 23 and also attended a roundtable at the Chinese embassy with leaders of 48 British companies.

The visit was made “at the invitation of the British government,” the Chinese embassy said in a news release, adding that “the British side” said during the talks that “the UK-China relationship is of strategic importance.”

Mr Yuan, who is also the communist party secretary of China’s Chongqing municipality, vowed during the meeting to boost industry in his region to strengthen ties with Britain in manufacturing, logistics and financial services.

Reeves met with Chinese vice premier

Two weeks ago, Chancellor Rachel Reeves met China’s deputy prime minister, He Lifeng, in Downing Street to discuss plans to strengthen the economic partnership between London and Beijing.

According to the meeting report on the Chinese government website, the Chancellor told his Chinese counterpart that “the UK attaches great importance to cooperation with China and is ready to give new impetus to UK-China economic cooperation.”

MPs suspect details of Beijing’s threat to the UK outlined in the Chinese audit are being deliberately hidden from the public to avoid a diplomatic row with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Audit led to increased intelligence funding

The results of the inquiry were enough to persuade the Government to announce a £600 million funding increase for intelligence services, prompting Mr Lammy to warn that Britain’s “protections need to be spread more widely than they currently are”.

Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that Mr Powell’s decision came after the Treasury expressed concerns that public disclosure of the threat from China would disrupt trade and investment opportunities, including trade talks planned for last month.

The revelation is likely to increase pressure on Downing Street to explain why Mr Powell, the government’s top national security official, is keen to withhold information about China from Parliament.

Luke de Pulford, a human rights campaigner and founder of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said Mr Powell’s disdain for Chinese oversight was part of a “growing criminal record” of being too soft on Beijing.

Audit suppressed after espionage case collapses

The limited release of the Chinese audit came as officials refused to provide the Crown Prosecution Service with evidence that China was a “threat to national security” requested for the prosecution of Mr Cash and Mr Berry.

Mr Powell reportedly chaired a meeting about the case shortly before it collapsed, but Downing Street denies any role in the decision not to give further evidence.

Director of prosecutions Stephen Parkinson said on Tuesday that the case collapsed because crucial evidence about China was “not forthcoming” from the Government.

His handling of the case has been questioned by two former Cabinet secretaries and former heads of MI6 and the CPS, as MPs called on Sir Keir to “come forward publicly” and explain why his officials are not willing to give the court more evidence about China.

Starmer refuses to rule out Powell involvement

Sir Keir insisted on Thursday that ministers were not involved in the decision to drop the case. But he did not give the same assurance about Mr. Powell.

Asked whether ministers or Mr Powell had been involved, the Prime Minister said: “So I can say absolutely clearly that, in relation to the evidence presented to the court in relation to this matter, ministers have not been involved in any decisions since this Government became involved.

“The evidence was this: […] The only evidence on the subject, and that evidence was the situation under the last Government rather than this Government. “You can only judge a person based on his condition at the time the alleged crime was committed.”

Downing Street sources later said Mr Powell was not involved in the decision.

The government’s counter-terrorism watchdog, Jonathan Hall, told LBC he believed the public deserved a “much more comprehensive explanation” of what was happening.

Government draws attention to national security

A Government spokesman said the Chinese audit had not been published in detail because much of its content was confidential.

“We published a summary of the audit conducted in June at a higher security classification and was consistent with our Five Eyes partners,” the spokesperson said. “Specific details of the audit cannot be released without harming our national security interests.”