Has civil service boss nobbled Boris and MI5 into caving in over Huawei?
That’s what angry Ministers claim as PM faces mounting fury over Chinese tech giant, HS2 and ‘control freak’ behaviour
BORIS JOHNSON is facing a damaging Cabinet row over plans to allow the Chinese to help build the UK’s new mobile phone network, with senior Government figures accusing him of risking the country’s security at the behest of the Civil Service.
The Prime Minister is expected to announce within days that tech giant Huawei will be handed a contract to provide key parts for the new 5G system – despite angry opposition from some Cabinet Ministers and the White House, who fear the kit could be fitted with ‘back door’ security access for Chinese spies.
It comes as Mr Johnson’s administration is riven with disputes on climate change, the proposed HS2 line and preparations for the March Budget – as well as arguments about the ‘control freak’ behaviour of No10 officials.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel have led Cabinet opposition to the proposed Huawei deal, citing US concerns about the company’s security and ties to the Chinese government – something Huawei has repeatedly denied.
On Friday night, President Donald Trump repeated his opposition to the plan in a phone call with Mr Johnson, which the White House diplomatically described as a ‘discussion of important regional and bilateral issues, including working together to ensure the security of our telecommunications networks’.
White House officials who were briefed on the call said that during the tense conversation, Mr Trump proposed that Britain and America work together to ‘build an alternative 5G network’ that does not use
Huawei, with one source claiming that Mr Johnson seemed to ‘warm’ to the President’s proposal.
Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, the chairman of the powerful foreign affairs committee in the last Parliament, said that allowing the Huawei deal would call our sovereignty into question. Writing on the page opposite, Mr Tugendhat rejects the idea that the Chinese should win the contract because they offered the cheapest option.
He says: ‘Our choice of 5G provider should not be economic but about sovereignty. Only nations that can protect their data will be sovereign.’
Government sources say Mr Johnson has ‘buckled’ under pressure from Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill to let Huawei help to build the system.
They claim that Sir Mark, the powerful head of the Civil Service, has ‘manipulated’ Mr Johnson into agreeing the deal by presenting it as a ‘fait accompli’ – and by ‘nobbling’ the British security services into dropping their objections.
A source said: ‘There is a massive row brewing over all this.
‘Sedwill is telling people not to “worry their little heads about it”, and manipulating Boris into appeasement by saying that as the deal was already given the green light by Theresa May, to cancel it would require him to actively reverse the decision of a predecessor.’
Sir Mark has told the Prime Minister that a ban on Huawei equipment would delay the widespread introduction of 5G for at least two years after the 2025 deadline in the Tory manifesto – and would also delay the availability of superfast broadband.
Australia and New Zealand, which are part of the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing network with Canada, the UK and the US, have also imposed bans on Huawei, but Mr Sedwill argues that any security risk can be managed if Huawei is barred from the core elements of the fifthgeneration mobile phone network.
Sir Mark is also at the centre of a separate Whitehall dispute over the priority the Government should be giving to climate change.
He is understood to have angered senior Government figures by arguing that tackling the global ‘climate emergency’ should rank above traditional defence of the realm issues such as the size of the Armed Forces.
The row arose earlier this month ahead of a meeting of the National Security Council, a Cabinet committee chaired by the Prime Minister which oversees issues relating to national security, defence strategy and the intelligence services.
Sources say Sir Mark commissioned a paper ahead of the meeting which argued that tackling climate change should be ranked as the largest single threat to British security – on the grounds that floods, storms and bushfires such as the ones in Australia would lead to issues such as a surge in migrants targeting the UK, as well as greater geopolitical instability. The meeting was cancelled in the wake of Sir Mark’s submission, the sources said.
Mr Johnson is also facing a crunch decision on whether to approve HS2, with his advisers and MPs hopelessly divided over whether the proposed London-Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds line is worth the £100 billion of taxpayers’ money it is projected to cost.
Opposition within the party is being led by 14 recently elected Tory MPs along the ‘Red Wall’ of former Labour seats who want the line scrapped and the money spent in their constituencies instead. A total of £250million a month is being burned through even before the project has started – money the TaxPayers’ Alliance pressure group has calculated would build 43 free schools, three hospitals, or a Type 31 Royal Navy frigate.
It comes as Cabinet tensions have risen over Chancellor Sajid Javid’s preparations for the Budget, expected in March.
One Cabinet Minister described Mr Javid as a ‘playground bully’ for the way he orders departments around. The Minister added: ‘Everyone knows that Sajid is a wholly owned subsidiary of No10, which tells him what to do.
‘What they don’t realise is what a playground bully he is being to other departments in response by rudely knocking back their suggestions.’
Ministerial advisers complain that in the wake of the Election victory, Downing Street officials have become ‘control freaks’ by banning lunches with journalists and interrogating aides suspected of leaking stories to the media.
Ministers have been told they will be ‘marked out of ten’ on their performance ahead of the imminent Cabinet reshuffle.
Mr Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings enhanced the perception of a ‘control freak’ by telling a meeting of ministerial advisers on Friday: ‘The People’s Government is advancing on all fronts.’
A defiant No10 source said the ‘centralisation’ process would continue, with civil servants encouraged ‘to work more closely with No10’, adding, ominously for the rest of Whitehall: ‘Likewise, No 10 colleagues will expect more open access to departmental meetings.’
‘There is a massive row brewing over all this’