Starmer under pressure over aide’s role in collapsed China spy trial
Sir Keir Starmer is facing questions over Labour’s sabotage of a spying trial after it emerged that his top security adviser was involved in talks on the case.
Jonathan Powell, one of the Prime Minister’s closest allies, ruled that the Government could not brand China an “enemy” in court.
The decision, first reported by The Telegraph on Saturday, led to the collapse of a rare prosecution of alleged spies under the Official Secrets Act when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided it no longer had sufficient evidence to convict.
According to reports, Mr Powell decided last month that his deputy could not name China an “enemy” of the UK in court, which would have been needed to meet the legal threshold to prosecute Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry.
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were accused of collecting information about government policy and the China Research Group of China-sceptic MPs, and passing it to a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party.
They were first charged under the previous Conservative government, and accused of collecting information from inside Parliament between 2021 and 2023. Both denied any wrongdoing.
Labour is now under pressure to explain why the Government appeared keen to maintain a soft stance on China that would collapse a spying case brought by prosecutors.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a leading China critic in the Commons, said that if ministers had blocked a witness from describing China as a threat in court, then the blame for the failure of the prosecution would be “fully back in the Government’s court”.
Although the CPS is independent, Sir Iain claimed ministers had “intervened indirectly” in the case because China had “forced their hand” by threatening to cut economic ties with the UK.
He added: “If President Xi [Jinping] says jump, it seems, the British Government simply asks: how high?”
Mr Powell’s intervention in the case was reported last night by the Sunday Times, which said the decision to effectively end the trial had come “from the top” of the Government.
The involvement of Mr Powell, the architect of Labour’s National Security Strategy, will raise further questions about whether the Government deliberately abandoned the prosecution to prevent a diplomatic rift with Beijing.
