British intelligence agency MI5 issued Chinese espionage warning to distract from Prime Minister scandal, court says

By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s domestic intelligence agency MI5 has issued an alert branding a woman a Chinese agent, possibly to divert attention from a COVID lockdown party scandal involving former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a London court heard on Monday.

In January 2022, MI5 issued an alert on lawyer Christine Lee, claiming she was “engaged in political interference activities” in the UK on behalf of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The Speaker of the House of Commons relayed the warning to MPs, saying MI5 had found that Lee had “facilitated financial donations to sitting and prospective MPs on behalf of foreign nationals residing in Hong Kong and China”.

Lee is now suing MI5 for unspecified damages, arguing that the secret service acted unlawfully and unreasonably.

At a hearing before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (PIT) on Monday, her lawyer Ramby de Mello read out a message Lee had received from Barry Gardiner, an opposition Labour Party MP who had said he had received donations from her totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds. In the message, Gardiner questioned MI5’s motives.

Gardiner wrote that “many people” felt the timing of the warning was intended to divert attention from Johnson’s admission of an unlawful assembly in Downing Street during the first COVID lockdown.

The day before the announcement was made, Johnson had apologised to Parliament for attending a meeting where alcohol was allowed to be brought into his official residence.

“I never believed that the security services would act in such an openly partisan manner,” reads Gardiner’s message, which he sent to Lee in May 2022 via a mutual friend.

“It was suggested to me that the security services might have wanted to ‘start a fight’ or ‘distract’ from something else and that we were merely collateral damage.”

Gardiner could not immediately be reached for comment.

De Mello said MI5 had no authority to issue the “unprecedented” memo, which was factually incorrect because it claimed Lee had engaged in political interference on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Force.

He said the UFWD would not hire her as an agent because she is a devout Christian. The impact of the alert, which sparked worldwide interest, was “catastrophic,” leading to death and rape threats and other abusive emails.

Her lawyers said in court documents that Lee, who watched the trial from the public gallery, was forced to spend most of her time in hiding, adopting a false name and disguising her appearance with a new hairstyle.

In their written submissions, MI5 lawyers said the red alert was issued on national security grounds to protect parliamentary democracy from foreign interference.

“The defendant concluded that (Lee) posed a risk of this nature and concluded that issuing the IA was the most effective and appropriate means of managing that risk. These assessments were reasonable and lawful,” the lawyers said.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Alison Williams)