Lawyer accused of being a Chinese spy loses case against MI5

A lawyer accused of working for the Chinese government by MI5 has lost her legal challenge against the intelligence agency.

The security service warned MPs in January 2022 that it believed Christine Lee had engaged in political interference and activities for a branch of the Chinese Communist Party, a day after the then prime minister, Boris Johnson apologized to MPs for the Partygate scandal.

Ms Lee said she believed the interference alert issued about her had a political purpose, namely to further the interests of the Conservative Party and took legal action, with her son Daniel Wilkes, against the security service .

But in a judgment delivered on Tuesday, three judges of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) unanimously rejected both requests.

Lord Justice Singh, sitting with Lord Boyd and Justice Rupert Jones, said MI5 had issued the warning for legitimate reasons.

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At a hearing in June, the court heard Ms Lee categorically denied the allegations against her, with her lawyers telling judges that issuing the notice was unlawful.

In his 41-page decision, Judge Singh rejected their challenges, notably on human rights grounds.

He said: It has not been suggested in this case that the applicants were tortured. What is suggested is that they were subjected to inhumane or degrading treatment.

We are not convinced that the minimum threshold required for a violation is met.

The judge said the MI5 warning, known as an interference alert, was pre-emptive, adding there had been no authoritative finding that Ms Lee had been engaged in criminal activity or other misconduct.

Lord Justice Singh concluded: We have reached the conclusion that the interference alert was issued in accordance with domestic law. The national security risk posed by Ms Lee has been rationally assessed and the issue of alerting for interference falls within the national security functions of the security service.

The alert came after Ms Lee donated 500,000 to Labor MP Barry Gardiner, who was chairman of the now-disbanded Chinese All-Party Parliamentary Group in Britain, on which she sat.

Analysis of the Register of Members' Financial Interests showed Lee donated more than $500,000 to Mr Gardiner and the Labor Party between 2015 and 2020, mainly through funding of Mr Gardiner's staff.

Mr Gardiner, MP for Brent West, told the BBC's Politics Live he had stopped all contact with Ms Lee due to the security service alert, but said he had been a friend of hers since many, many years.

He insisted that the money he received from her was for the public benefit of my office and that no amount came from an illegal source, according to MI5.

The Security Service said the money was provided by foreign nationals and made in secret coordination with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the CCP.

Ms Lee, who set up an immigration consultancy in 1994, said she had lobbied MPs on behalf of British Chinese nationals and to establish business links, but that all donations to MPs were recorded and responded to to the requirements of parliamentary control.

Conservative grandee Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the government had questions to answer over whether Ms Lee should remain in the UK after losing her legal challenge against the intelligence services.

Sir Iain, a senior Tory skeptical of China, told the PA news agency: My question is more for the government. What will the intelligence services do now?

Either they think she remains a threat, in which case she shouldn't be there, or if she doesn't, then they need to be clear about that.

The IPT's judgment comes a day after an alleged Chinese spy with close links to the Duke of York was named when a High Court judge lifted his anonymity.

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Yang Tengbo, who denies any wrongdoing, was named on Monday as the individual who was banned from the UK and is believed to have been a close confidant of Andrew.

In a statement on Tuesday, a Chinese embassy spokesperson said anti-China cries by a handful of British MPs exposed their twisted mentality towards China and accused them of trying to defame China and undermine normal personal exchanges between China and the United Kingdom.

The statement added: “We urge the British side to immediately stop creating trouble, stop anti-China political manipulation and stop undermining normal personal exchanges between China and the United Kingdom.