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By Sean Rayment
MI5 has issued an espionage alert to MPs and peers warning that two people linked to the Chinese intelligence service are actively seeking to recruit parliamentarians.
The two recruiters, who operate as headhunters on the LinkedIn professional networking website aiming to obtain “non-public and insider insights,” MI5 said, are also targeting economists, think tank staff and civil servants for their access to politicians.
The spy agency sent its warning about the two to Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the Commons, and his Lords equivalent, Lord McFall, on Tuesday morning, both of whom relayed its contents to MPs with a cover message. In an email to peers, McFall said the individuals, linked to China’s Ministry of State Security spy agency (MSS), are “actively reaching out to individuals in our community.”
Their “aim is to collect information and lay the groundwork for long-term relationships, using professional networking sites, recruitment agents and consultants acting on their behalf,” he added.
Security Minister Dan Jarvis has said the government will not tolerate “covert and calculated” attempts to interfere with the UK’s sovereign affairs.
He said: “This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favour of its own interests, and this government will not tolerate it,” he told MPs.
Jarvis said MI5 had warned that the espionage campaign was “being carried out by a group of Chinese intelligence officers, often masked through the use of cover companies or external headhunters.”
MI5 has previously warned about Chinese spies seeking to obtain information by using LinkedIn to recruit Britons working in sensitive areas. Posing as recruitment consultants, the agents, normally women, have sought to lure at least 10,000 Britons with potential job offers.
Jarvis announced a package of measures in the House of Commons to tackle espionage threats to the UK.
These included £170m to upgrade encrypted technology for government business, as well as new protections against Chinese cybercrime and attempts to influence UK university research.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and his counterpart in the House of Lords, Lord McFall, circulated the MI5 warning to MPs and peers on Tuesday.
Writing to MPs, Sir Lindsay said Chinese state actors were “relentless” in trying to “interfere with our processes and influence activity at Parliament.”
He said the Chinese MSS was “actively reaching out to individuals in our community,” and that they wanted to “collect information and lay the groundwork for long-term relationships, using professional networking sites, recruitment agents and consultants acting on their behalf.”
Other elements of espionage described in the MI5 alert include all-expenses-paid trips to China, and payment for information through cash or cryptocurrency.
Targets are said to include “Parliament staff, economists, think tank employees, geopolitical consultants and those working alongside [the government] including MPs and members of the House of Lords.”
Jarvis highlighted a pattern of behaviour around Chinese spying attempts, which he said he would take “all necessary measures” to protect against, including updating and strengthening national security powers.
He said rules will be tightened to tackle covert funding of political parties, while the Electoral Commission will be given greater enforcement powers.
There will also be security briefings for all parties and candidates standing in the elections next May for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and councils across England.
Stressing that China is still the UK’s third biggest trading partner, Jarvis said the UK would nevertheless use sanctions “as necessary.”
Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the alert showed China was taking an “aggressive position” that “blows a hole through all of that ridiculous nonsense” about whether or not China was a threat to UK national security.
“We have to be much, much more vigilant,” he told BBC News.
“Why is the government so unable to call China what it is, which is a persistent, continuing threat to Britain’s national security.
“That is clear to every single member of the public… but somehow the government seems to think it isn’t that clear.”
