A Labour MP and key ally of Jeremy Corbyn claimed it had been suggested that MI5 issued a rare alert notice about a lawyer who the Security Service believed was a Chinese mole as a distraction from Partygate, a tribunal has heard.
The Security Service issued an interference alert against Christine Lee in 2022, the day after Boris Johnson apologised for the Partygate scandal, warning MPs that she was a suspected Chinese agent who had engaged in “political interference activities” on behalf of a branch of the Chinese Communist party (CCP).
The investigatory powers tribunal in London heard that Barry Gardiner, who is standing to return as a Labour MP in Brent West, a seat largely replacing the Brent North constituency he has held since 1997, told Lee that it had been suggested the alert had been issued to “detract attention” from the scandal, which many argue contributed to Johnson’s downfall.
Lee donated more than £500,000 to Gardiner, who was chair of the now disbanded Chinese in Britain all-party parliamentary group on which she sat, which the Security Service said was provided by foreign nationals and “undertaken in covert coordination” with the CCP branch.
Lee denies the allegations and is taking legal action against the Security Service with her son, Daniel Wilkes, who lost his job with Gardiner after the alert, arguing that issuing the alert was unlawful and interfered with their human rights.
In a text forwarded to Lee by a friend, Gardiner said: “Many people have said to me that they believe the reason for putting out the story when they did was to detract attention from Boris’s Partygate apology which was announced the day before at PMQs. I had never believed that the Security Services would be overtly party political in that way.
“What has also been suggested to me is that the Security Services may have wished to ‘pick a fight’ or to ‘detract attention’ from something else and that we were simply collateral damage. The fact that they have apparently failed to take any further action for the supposedly ‘illegal’ activity which they alleged had taken place leaves me deeply sceptical.”
The alert about Lee was issued on 13 January 2022, a day after Johnson apologised to the House of Commons for breaching Covid lockdown rules.
At the hearing on Monday, Ramby de Mello, representing Lee and Wilkes, said it was “plainly wrong” for the notice to have been issued.
The tribunal was told that the donations to Gardiner came “overwhelmingly” from “profit costs” of her law firm and that the Security Service failed to consider that it was unlikely she would have been recruited as an agent due to her Christian beliefs.
Wilkes had his parliamentary security access revoked and lost his job with Gardiner after the Security Service “spoke to” the MP.
The Security Service is contesting the case, arguing that its decision was rational and lawful.
