US steps up calls to ditch Huawei over 5G snooping fears
THE US is putting intense pressure on Boris Johnson to block Chinese firm Huawei’s involvement in the new 5G mobile network as he meets security chiefs to decide on a way forward.
Washington made a fresh plea for the Prime Minister to ditch the plan over fears it will allow China to spy on Britain and sabotage infrastructure.
Senior Tories warned involving the tech giant would be like letting the fox into the hen house and insisted that protecting intelligence-sharing ties with the US must be top priority.
Mr Johnson is expected to make a decision today with the National Security Council on whether to allow Huawei to have a role in the project.
The Prime Minister insisted he would not “jeopardise” the security relationship with allies but raved about access to “fantastic technology”.
Spy
He said: “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t have technological progress here in the UK, allow consumers, businesses in the UK to have access to fantastic technology, fantastic communications, but also protect our security interests and protect our key partnerships with other security powers around the world.”
Huawei is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of telecoms equipment and is a private company.
But Chinese law means firms can be forced to cooperate with its intelligence agencies and critics claim Beijing could force Huawei to spy on people through so-called “back doors” in its 5G telecoms equipment.
It has always denied being closely tied to the state and insists it abides by the laws of where it operates.
The Government is said to be considering giving the company a restricted role in the network upgrade.
But the US has urged allies in the Five Eyes intelligence community – the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – not to use Huawei. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the choice today was “momentous” and warned “only nations able to protect their data will be sovereign”.
In the Commons, MPs from different parties lined up to warn against going ahead with the project.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who was chairman of the foreign affairs select committee in the last Parliament, said: “I hope the minister will see the concern that this whole House feels towards Huawei and the idea we should be nesting that dragon, the idea that we should be allowing the fox into the hen house when really we should be guarding the wire is one of those moments where I hope the minister will see his responsibility very clearly.”
Former Cabinet minister Damian Green said the Government should “decide that security considerations outweigh economic ones” and Tory Owen Paterson said the situation is “absolutely extraordinary”.
Labour’s Chris Bryant said: “Isn’t the real issue here that in China we face a political party running a country which believes it is perfectly acceptable to mount regular cyber attacks on the House of Commons and the network here, on key infrastructure in the UK, that frequently decides to engage in state-sponsored industrial espionage? It is difficult to see that this is a fair and honest broker for us to do business with.”