MI5 director-general Sir Ken McCallum has signed a joint letter with GCHQ director Anne Keast-Butler warning that the security threats posed by China’s newly-approved super-embassy cannot be wholly eliminated. Just hours after Labour gave China the go-ahead…
In a letter to the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary, the pair write:
“For the Royal Mint Court site, as with any foreign embassy on UK soil, it is not realistic to expect to be able wholly to eliminate each and every potential risk. (And even if this were a practicable goal, it would be irrational to drive ‘embassy-generated risk’ down to zero when numerous other threat vectors are so central to the national security risks we face in the present era.) However, the collective work across UK intelligence agencies and HMG departments to formulate a package of national security mitigations for the site has been, in our view, expert, professional and proportionate.”
Delicate language that should nonetheless set off alarm bells. The Chinese are planning to build hundreds of rooms beneath the site which would sit just metres away from ultra-sensitive fibre optic cabling that is vital for the City’s financial data. There are supposedly mitigating measures in place to protect against this, if you can believe that. Not a good day for Starmer…
Following Andrew Rosindell’s defection, Nigel Farage posted on X:
“Andrew Rosindell will not be the last MP to put country before party before the deadline on May 7th.”