Pressure intensified on Labour’s National Security Adviser after a Cabinet Minister refrained from entirely exonerating him in the collapse of the Chinese spy trial. Bridget Phillipson asserted that Sir Keir Starmer’s ally, Jonathan Powell, “had no role in substance or evidence” surrounding the case, reports BritPanorama.
However, the Education Secretary did not confirm that Powell was entirely uninvolved in the trial’s failure. When questioned about Powell’s role, Phillipson stated to the BBC: “I can give you that reassurance, he did not have those conversations around the substance or the evidence of the case.”
The prosecution against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, who were accused of espionage on behalf of Beijing, collapsed last month. This occurred after prosecutors disclosed that ministers had failed to provide evidence confirming whether China was classified as a national security threat at the time of the alleged offences.
Starmer has attributed blame for the trial’s failure to the previous Tory government, insisting that China had not been formally designated a threat during the timeframe of the alleged crimes. Nonetheless, Labour insiders contend that Powell was involved in the decision to withhold critical evidence required by the prosecutors.
Ministers are expected to be summoned to the Commons tomorrow to clarify the reasons behind the trial’s abandonment. Both the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and senior Conservative figures have indicated that the government’s current rationale falls short, particularly regarding who decided not to classify China as an enemy.
This morning, Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel maintained that the communist state was indeed designated a threat by the prior Tory government, albeit through “classified information.”
Patel remarked: “We knew that China was an adversary, a real threat to us. I saw that, obviously in ways in which I can’t disclose now, I saw that through classified information – our agencies, our intelligence and security agencies, were saying that throughout, and have been saying that consistently.”
Regardless of Powell’s potential involvement, Patel argued that ministers must take responsibility. She urged Attorney General Lord Richard Hermer to appear before Parliament and explain the situation: “There are plenty of unanswered questions… about why this case failed, and why it was not going further for prosecution – we should have Government ministers come into Parliament, they have a duty, this is a case involving the national security of our country.”
She added, “Instead, all we’ve had in Parliament is a junior minister saying that they are deeply disappointed. How can they just be deeply disappointed when China is a threat to our national security?”
