A senior Tory has told how he met an MI6 officer in Bangkok amid fears of a foreign plot to sway the Tory election which saw Liz Truss become Prime Minister.
Sir Graham Brady, former chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, revealed how he was ushered into a “large metal room” inside a room in the British Embassy in the Thai capital so Cabinet Secretary Simon Case could lay out the threat.
Britain’s most senior civil servant had already phoned him days earlier to raise the alarm about the “growing and increasingly credible evidence” that “foreign actors” were preparing an “intervention in the leadership election with the aim of influencing its outcome”.
The fears had reached such levels that the British government was considering the need to go public to call out the threatened attempt to interfere in the key Tory election, which would decide who succeeded Boris Johnson in No10 two years ago.
Sir Graham had gone to the embassy to be able to talk with key figures in Whitehall on a more secure communications line about the threats identified by Britain’s intelligence and security agencies, which include MI6, MI5 and the GCHQ spy listening centre in Cheltenham.
Once inside the building, which was closed as it was Sunday, Sir Graham was given more details, including that there were “fragments of intelligence” which raised “serious cause for concern”.
The possible election interference could be in the form of “hack and leak”, “tampering with the numbers of votes”, “disruption of the ballot” or “denial of access,” he was told.
Sir Graham understood the last threat to be the “most serious of all” as the Tory party could be left in the deeply embarrassing position of the poll, to choose whether Ms Truss or Rishi Sunak would be Tory leader and Prime Minister, ending but being unable to say who had won.
The revelations in Sir Graham’s memoirs, Kingmaker - Secrets, Lies and the Truth about Five Prime Ministers, came as Tory MPs and members, at the party’s annual rally in Birmingham, are in the process of choosing a new leader, with four contenders still in the contest.
They are former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat.
Two years ago, Sir Graham had flown to Thailand on Friday July 22 with his wife Vic for a break, and got a call from Mr Case soon after arriving on the island of Koh Phangan.
“Sorry to disturb your holiday but there is something that I should share with you,” Sir Graham recalls, in his book, being told by Britain’s top civil servant.
“I may have to speak in an elliptical way in case the line isn’t secure . . . We have growing evidence, increasingly credible evidence, that foreign actors are preparing an intervention in the leadership election with the aim of influencing its outcome.
“We may have to say something publicly – but this is your election, not ours, so it will be your decision.”
The shop steward of backbench Tory MPs told Mr Case that he would be in Bangkok from Saturday evening and that they might then be able to speak on a more secure communication line through the embassy.
Sir Graham, who had headed the 1922 executive since 2010, was picked up by a diplomatic car on Sunday July 31 and taken to Sathorn Tower where the embassy is based in Bangkok.
On arrival, a security guard told him the embassy was closed.
The senior Tory parliamentarian, now Lord Brady of Altrincham, added: “But after 15 minutes a young Brit came down in the lift to take me upstairs through stuffy rooms.
‘I’m afraid they turn the air con off at the weekends. Have you been in one of our stations before?’
“I realised that I was going to a particular part of the Embassy.
“I was shown into a large metal room within a room. The ‘safe talking space’ was locked by a metal lever.”
It was here that Sir Graham was told more about the intelligence services’ concerns.
“Simon Case was already on the screen, and someone else joined him shortly,” he remembers.
“On the table was a letter addressed to me as Chairman of the Conservative Private Members Committee – the formal and now seldom-used title of the ’22.
“There was nothing certain or specific, but it seemed that fragments of intelligence showed serious cause for concern.
“The election interference could come in the form of ‘hack and leak’, ‘disruption of the ballot’, ‘tampering with the numbers of votes’, or ‘denial of access’.
“The last was the most serious of all, because we could reach the close of the poll and not be able to tell who had won.
“The Intelligence Service chap helpfully added: ‘The reason our General Elections are pretty safe is it’s very hard to tamper with a pencil and a bit of paper.’”
The senior Tory does not reveal if he was told which “foreign actors” were suspected of being behind the possible plot, or if it was a state actor, a state-linked group or other individuals.
Sir Graham, who at the time was MP for Altrincham and Sale West, a seat he had represented since 1997, recalls how he considered scrapping online voting for the leadership election.
But he told how he was persuaded that “certain security measures in mitigation” would be enough, including him overseeing the votes coming in twice a week.
Ms Truss was declared winner of the leadership contest on September 5, by a margin of 81,326 votes to Mr Sunak’s 60,399.
At the time, it was reported that the Conservative Party delayed sending out ballot papers and “enhanced security” around the election after taking advice from the National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ.
