MI5 warns MP's: Chinese government 'agent' has been 'active' in UK parliament

Source: Sky News

MI5 has warned that a Chinese government agent has been working in parliament "to subvert the processes", MPs have been told.

A letter was sent to MPs by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle who said MI5 warned him a woman called Christine Lee has been "engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the Chinese Community Party, engaging with members here at parliament".

MI5 sent out an "interference alert" warning Ms Lee has "facilitated financial donations to serving and aspiring parliamentarians on behalf of foreign nationals based in Hong Kong and China...done covertly to mask the origins of the payments".

The security service said the Chinese lawyer has been involved with MPs and hopeful MPs as well as members of the now-disbanded all-party parliamentary group, Chinese in Britain.

In the alert, it said: "Lee has acted covertly in coordination with the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party (UFWD) and is judged to be involved in political interference activities in the UK."

Sir Lindsay told MPs if they have been approached by Ms Lee they should contact the director of security for parliament.

Ms Lee has been seen over the years with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, talking to David Cameron in 2015 and was given a prise by Theresa May for "promoting engagement, understanding and cooperation between the Chinese community and wider UK society".

Donations to Barry Gardiner

Labour frontbencher and former minister Barry Gardiner has been named as an MP who accepted donations from the Chinese woman, and he confirmed her son was working for him but resigned today.

The MPs' register of interests shows Ms Lee has made more than £700,000 in donations to parliamentarians, much of that to Mr Gardiner.

He told Sky News he has been liaising with MI5 "for a number of years" about Ms Lee "and they have always known, and been made fully aware by me, of her engagement with my office and the donations she made to fund researchers in my office".

Mr Gardiner added: "Steps were taken to ensure she had no role in either the appointment or management of those researchers.

"They are also aware that I have not benefitted personally from those donations in any way. She ceased funding any workers in my office in June 2020."

He said MI5 has assured him funding Ms Lee provided to him was not through "improper" means.

Mr Gardiner added that her son had been working for him as a diary manager but he resigned earlier on Thursday and MI5 said they "have no intelligence that shows he was aware of, or complicit in, his mother's illegal activity".

Leading Tory Iain Duncan Smith, who is among several MPs China has placed sanctions on for speaking up against its treatment of the Uyghurs, told Sky News Ms Lee should be made to leave the UK and said he was concerned for people he is helping flee the Chinese regime.

He said: "Why in heavens name is such an agent allowed in this country?"

Mr Duncan Smith said he has been helping people in Hong Kong escape from the clutches of the Chinese government, which has been imposing ever stricter rules on the island's citizens.

"My concern now is for people's lives, we're dealing with people who have been fleeing from China," he said.

"And I'm really worried that some of that information may have got back to the Chinese government on their whereabouts and their family."