UK should designate China a national security threat, claims Priti Patel
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Shadow foreign secretary accuses China of ‘all sorts of incursions in our country’. The UK should officially designate China a national security threat, Tory frontbencher Dame Priti Patel has said, as she accused the government of “desperation” in its early dealings with Beijing.
Speaking in the wake of the row over Prince Andrew’s links to alleged Chinese spy Yang Tengbo, who was barred from the UK after being judged likely to pose a threat to national security, Dame Priti warned that Xi Jinping’s “extraordinary regime” has “had all sorts of incursions in our country”.
In her first interview since being appointed Kemi Badenoch’s shadow foreign secretary, the veteran Conservative MP said she would “absolutely” place China on a list of nations deemed to pose the biggest security risks to Britain, as part of the long-delayed Foreign Influence Registration Scheme (Firs).
“It’s clearly complicated legislation, but China should always be up there,” she said of the plans for a register of foreign lobbyists and hostile state agents, which were introduced by the Tories in 2023 but are not expected to come into force until next summer.
Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat were also among influential Tories to call this week for China to be included in the enhanced tier of the scheme – a status reserved only for nations posing a risk to the UK. Mr Tugendhat told MPs that MI5 has made “very, very clear” that failing to do so would mean Firs is “not worth having”.
