There are growing questions over the collapse of a case against two men accused of spying for Beijing, with the former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service saying he is unsure why the prosecution was dropped.
It comes amid allegations that the prime minister’s team had access to multiple documents that proved China was a national security risk but supposedly chose not to hand them over to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) before the case was brought to a close.
And on the eve of Sir Keir Starmer’s trip to Egypt, where he will attend a Middle East peace summit chaired by Donald Trump, the White House has reportedly warned that the failure to prosecute the two alleged Chinese spies risks undermining the special relationship – and could threaten intelligence sharing between Britain and the US.
Speaking about the collapse of the trial, Sir John Sawers told Times Radio: “I don’t think it’s got anything to do with intelligence. I think these two people accused of spying in Parliament were low-grade reporters of opinion in Parliament. What they were doing, if the allegations are true, was certainly illegal.
“And frankly, I’m a bit confused and unsure about why the prosecution was dropped. Of course, China poses an intelligence threat, a subversion threat here in the UK, as well as being an economic partner.
“If these activities being paid agents inside Parliament of a foreign power, even if that foreign power was a friend of the UK’s, that would be an illegal activity. So I’m not sure why the prosecution was dropped.”
“I think the government was slow in putting out a clear line on this. We heard one from Yvette Cooper at the end of last week. But I think the Americans will be equally perplexed as to why the prosecution was dropped when the case looked pretty clear”, the former MI6 chief added.
It comes after two former top civil servants questioned the prime minister’s explanation for the abandonment of the prosecution of Christopher Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, 33, a teacher.
The prime minister has maintained the last Conservative administration had not designated China as a threat to national security, so his government could not provide evidence to that effect, which the director of public prosecutions (DPP) Stephen Parkinson said was required to meet the threshold for prosecution.
Lord Mark Sedwill, a predecessor to the PM’s current national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, expressed confusion about why the trial fell apart because Beijing was “of course” a threat to the UK, while former cabinet secretary Lord Simon Case said intelligence chiefs had publicly warned of the threat from China for years.
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve on Friday dismissed the government’s claims as “weird”, telling The Independent: “I can’t see why the PM was not in a position to ask the Cabinet Office to provide the evidence.”
Mr Cash and Mr Berry were charged by the CPS in April last year with spying under the Official Secrets Act 1911, when they were accused of collecting and communicating information which could be “useful to an enemy”. Both denied the charges.
White House sources told The Times that Mr Trump is increasingly concerned about the reliability of the UK after the charges were dropped, with a senior official saying: “The United States has been warning allies about the Chinese threat to our combined national security since President Trump first came into office in 2017.
“The US government exercises extreme caution in sharing information with foreign governments subject to adversarial coercion and influence.
“We are especially careful in jurisdictions where our adversaries can act with impunity.”
The collapse of the case has raised questions about Britain’s willingness to confront China as Sir Keir’s government looks to build closer ties with the country.
The Tories have accused the government of “political interference” in the trial, with shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel urging attorney general Lord Hermer, to “come to Parliament and account for what has happened”.
The Sunday Times reported last week that in a meeting last month, Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which was published in June and does not refer to Beijing as an “enemy”.
But Cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson said Mr Powell played no role in the collapse of a prosecution against two alleged Chinese spies and has the PM’s full confidence.
