Lawyers working on the campaign to stop the Chinese mega-embassy have struck on a potentially huge scandal in the Labour government’s handling of the process. It’s thought that in a secret meeting in August last year, UK officials gave potentially false assurances to the US about the presence of vital cables near the site…
Guido has seen the legal correspondence involved. Lawyers request from the Labour government:
“The minutes (or a note) of a meeting held on 18 August 2025 between officials of the UK Government and officials of the White House National Security Council in London regarding the proposed development so we can understand to what extent any or all of the above matters (or any other matters relevant to the legality of the DL) were discussed there. Please also confirm if any officials from the MHCLG were in attendance at the meeting and whether, if they were not, the agenda for, and/or discussions at, the meeting were in any way communicated to MHCLG and, if so, how and to whom”
Luke De Pulford, Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told Guido: “The public are now being asked to pay for the mega-embassy threat to be mitigated. So the least we can expect is full transparency about what was communicated to our most important security partner, especially as Steve Reed ruled the cabling issue in scope.” Another disaster is unravelling for Labour…
After being blocked from standing at the Gorton and Denton by-election, Andy Burnham said at the Centre for Social Justice:
“I’m very much focussing on my job. I’ve said everything I think I’m going to say about that.”