Keir Starmer has defended his government’s greater openness towards Beijing following revelations about an alleged Chinese spy who forged a close relationship with Prince Andrew, saying it was “important to engage”.
Questioned for the first time about the case, amid calls from some MPs to change his approach on China, the prime minister refused to comment directly on Andrew or the royals, but said he was pleased with what he called progress on ties with Beijing.
As part of the partial reset of relations with Beijing, Starmer met China’s president, Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit in Rio, the first meeting between British and Chinese leaders in six years. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is expected to visit Beijing soon.
“Of course, we are concerned about the challenge that China poses,” Starmer told a brief press conference in Bergen alongside the Norwegian prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, during a visit centred on cooperation over defence and clean energy.
“I had a meeting with the [Chinese] president just a few weeks ago. Our approach is one of engagement, of cooperating where we need to cooperate, particularly for example on issues like climate change, to challenge where we must and where we should, particularly on issues like human rights, and to compete when it comes to trade.
“So that’s the strategic approach that we’ve set out as a UK government. I’m not going to comment on Buckingham Palace or the royal side, because, by convention, the government never does.”
Starmer went on: “It’s important to engage. Of course, we have to challenge where we must, but it’s better to engage to challenge than to stay aside, as it were, important to cooperate where we can on issues like climate change, which need that cooperation. So I’m very pleased with the engagement and the progress that we’ve made.”
According to court documents, the alleged spy, who under a UK court order can be referred to publicly only as H6, was so close to the prince he was authorised to act on his behalf in an international financial initiative with potential partners and investors in China.
In the judgment this month, which upheld the businessman’s exclusion from the UK, the judge found he had “won a significant degree, one could say an unusual degree, of trust from a senior member of the royal family who was prepared to enter into business activities with him”.
Ministers are coming under pressure to set a timeline to revive the foreign influence registration scheme (FIRS), which had been delayed until next year, and to put China on the enhanced category for threats.
Asked about progress of the scheme, Starmer said only: “We’ve been working on it from day one in government, and there will be an update coming shortly.”
Conservative MPs who are more resistant about links to China have warned that the case involving Andrew is almost certainly just a tiny part of wider efforts by Beijing to forge links with influential people in the UK using what is known as its United Front Work Department.
Iain Duncan Smith, a former Conservative leader who is seeking an urgent Commons question on Monday to quiz ministers about the issue, said the current case was just “the tip of the iceberg” of Beijing’s attempts to infiltrate the UK.
“The fact is, there are many more like him in the UK,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “There are many more doing the job that he’s been doing, and the fact he was leaving the UK tells you that he realised at some point he was going to get caught.
“The reality is that there are many, many more involved in exactly this kind of espionage that’s taking place now. The reality for us is very simple. China is a very clear threat.”
Tom Tugendhat, another Tory MP who was formerly the security minister, told BBC One’s Breakfast: “I’m absolutely certain that there are members of the United Front Work Department who are active right now in attempting to influence journalism, academics, politics, and the whole lot. This is really the tip of the iceberg.
“And so the story, I can understand why it’s been about Prince Andrew but it’s not really about Prince Andrew. It’s about the way the Chinese Communist party is seeking to exert influence here in the United Kingdom.”
If Smith’s question is granted by the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, there is speculation that other MPs, potentially from Reform UK, may name the alleged spy.
