Nigel Farage on the latest Westminster spy claims
Nigel Farage has blasted Britain’s attitude to China and response to the parliament spy scandal, demanding to know why it was kept quiet for half-a-year.
The GB News presenter said it was “shocking” there had been a cover-up since March of this year, following the arrest of two men in relation to the allegations.
He preemptively dismissed claims it was kept under wraps so the forthcoming trial isn’t prejudiced as he said: “I think these things actually need – as a matter of public interest – to be talked about and to be debated.”
Mr Farage demanded answers from both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, demanding to know what the latter was thinking when he visited Beijing just two weeks ago.
“What was James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, thinking in visiting Beijing just a few weeks back? In the light of this evidence why didn’t he make a public fuss about it?”
READ MORE: Rishi Sunak warns China he ‘will not accept’ interference in UK democracy
Mr Sunak also came under heavy fire over his U-turns on China.
While the Prime Minister was talking tough to the Chinese Premier at the G20, and in the Commons today, Mr Sunak has significantly watered down his anti-China pledges since last summer’s Tory leadership contest.
Mr Farage said Rishi Sunak is “the man who, when running to become leader of the Conservative Party, and therefore Prime Minister, described China as threat.”
But now that’s been downgraded. China, is a “systematic challenge.”
The former Brexit Party leader sided with Mr Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, who today urged the Government to label China a threat.
Ms Truss boldly told the Commons that what the UK must do is “recognise that China is the largest threat, both to the world and to the United Kingdom, for freedom and democracy” and “designate it as such.”
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Nigel Farage quoted former MI5 boss Ken McCallum, who “takes it all rather more seriously” than Rishi Sunak’s Government, he claimed.
Mr Farage continued: “He said in a very unusual speech last year that the NCC had defended the UK against a record number of what he described as ‘cyber security incidents targeted at healthcare, vaccine development and much else’, and he was perfectly clear that China was a threat.”
GB News’s star presenter blasted Britain’s political leadership, and voiced his concerns that “too many people in high positions in British society over the course of the last 10 years who have enriched themselves on the back of our growing trade with China, so much so that much of this tends to get brush under the carpet.”
This afternoon Rishi Sunak gave an update to the Commons after his trip to India for the G20 summit, where he reportedly challenged the Chinese premier over the Saturday night spying revelations.
Mr Sunak told MPs: “I have been emphatically clear in our engagement with China that we will not accept any interference in our democracy and parliamentary system.
“We will defend our democracy and our security.
“So, I was emphatic with Premier Li that actions which seek to undermine British democracy are completely unacceptable and will never be tolerated.”
China has denied the spying allegations, calling them “a witch-hunt.” The individual at the heart of the allegations has emphatically denied the claims in a statement.
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