If there’s one person who knows a thing or two about stories involving Chinese spies, it’s “Beijing Barry”. Appearing on Politics Live this afternoon, the Labour MP slammed the security services for allowing the spy on the premises:
“What is going on with our security services? First of all, that these people are able to get in there in the first place… this was somebody that had a parliamentary pass, who was actually working, known to be working, on an area of sensitivity about China! […] Why is it that the security services arrested somebody in March, and now in September we are finding out about it? … on the day the story broke about Christine Lee, I went straight onto the media, I spoke about it, I answered questions from the public about it!”
In Barry’s defence, this is true: he was all over the media the day the Christine Lee story broke. Although Gardiner did also claim Lee’s son – who worked as his researcher – “wasn’t aware” of his mother’s alleged “illegal activity“. Just as well, because he had access to the parliamentary estate mere hours before the news went public…
Christine Lee, a Chinese solicitor accused of spying on Westminster on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party, is now suing MI5 for “attacking” her reputation and undermining her human rights by publicly naming her as a saboteur. She is seeking unspecified damages in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, after British intelligence chiefs claimed in 2022 she was performing “political interference activities” for the Chinese government. Her son worked for Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who also pocketed around £500,000 courtesy of Lee’s generosity…
Lee’s lawyer claimed today the accusations were false, and his client is not a communist spy at all:
“There has been a serious and public attack on (Lee’s) reputation without any prior finding of guilt […] Her claim is that she is a victim of the state’s actions and she seeks to protect her fundamental rights.”
MI5 continue to defend the claims, with their lawyer saying the emergency alert issued in 2022 was necessary “to protect parliamentary democracy from the threat posed by foreign political interference“. There are enough leaks in Parliament nowadays as it is…
Barry Gardiner has trousered another £77,000 from a law firm whose founder is linked to the Chinese regime, bringing the total he has accepted to over £380,000. Readers will remember how ‘Beijing Barry’ hit the headlines last year for taking huge sums in donations from Christine Lee & Co. Christine Lee describes herself as a “legal adviser to the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the UK” and “legal adviser to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council” in China. Her son, Daniel Wilkes, works in Gardiner’s office as a parliamentary researcher. The register states Wilkes is “paid by Christine Lee & Co (solicitors) for the work I do in Parliament”…
Would young Dan have his parliamentary pass if mum wasn’t splashing the cash? Gardiner’s current brief concerns international trade with China. He was a vocal advocate of the Hinkley Point power station deal, which involved a Chinese state-backed firm. Both the donations and employing Christine Lee’s son are allowed under parliamentary rules. Which says more about the rules than anything else…
