Kevin Hollinrake has torn into the Labour Government for refusing to answer several of his questions regarding the planned Chinese “super-embassy” in London.
Speaking to GB News, the Conservative Party Chairman exclusively shared a letter he received from the Government with the People’s Channel, in which he was told the housing department “holds no information within the scope of those questions”.
The letter, sent to the department, asked several key questions about the newly proposed embassy, including which minister has been assigned to the project, and why the Chinese Government has not released drawings for their plans inside the embassy.
Reacting to Labour’s refusal to answer his questions, Mr Hollinrake told GB News: “It’s pathetic. We’ve not been battling to get the information for the sake of it, we’re battling to get the information because rejecting the embassy on that site is in the national interest.
“And I just don’t understand why the Government will not run this country in the national interest, that is the problem.”
Highlighting that the embassy’s proposed location is in the “totally wrong place” within the capital, Mr Hollinrake explained: “Nine Labour MPs, as well as all the Conservatives and other parties too, do not want this embassy where it is. It’s totally the wrong place to put it.
“It’s near sensitive cables that run from the city into the rest of the country, these dark fibre cables. The only way you can access them is by physically tapping into them, and this embassy runs right over the top of them.
“So the temptation there for a Chinese Government, which will obviously operate the embassy, to look at vital economic information that’s in their interests and not in our interest to give them, it will just be overwhelming. It is disastrous policy and it must be rejected by this Government. But they’re not going to reject it, they’re going to approve it.”
Kevin Hollinrake tore in Labour’s ‘pathetic’ response to his concerns over the new Chinese ‘super-embassy’
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As GB News’s Katherine Forster pointed out plans by the Chinese to rebuild the basement walls and place them just “one metre away” from the cables mentioned by Mr Hollinrake, he responded: “We know they will tamper with them, they’ve got form for doing this all around the world, not just in the UK.
“In our own country, they’ve had their own secret police forces operating, we know this. We know that the Chinese Government, there is no separation of any of this stuff from the Chinese Government, the Chinese national interests, we know they’re involved. There is a security threat for this country to think they wouldn’t take advantage of these opportunities.”
“There’ll be over 2,000 people operating this embassy. It’s not just about these secret basement rooms that we know nothing about, it’s what the whole operation will be. It’s a mega spy hub, that’s what this will be. This must be rejected.”
Taking aim at Sir Keir Starmer for “selling our national interest down the river”, Mr Hollinrake fumed: “And yet, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves seem willing to sell our national interest down the river for a few hundred million pounds.
Mr Hollinrake received a letter in response from the Labour Government
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“They’re working very much in the short term interest because they’re desperate for growth, and they can only see growth from somewhere like China, rather than the domestic economy, and willing to forsake our long term national interests for a short term when it’s completely ludicrous and against our national interests.”
The development plans for the embassy, exposed by The Telegraph, show unredacted drawings of just how close the underground room will be to sensitive fibre optic cables.
The sheer proximity to these wires has sparked concern, given they carry financial information and data to and from the City of London.
Scrambling to defend the plans, Home Office Minister Alex Norris told GB News that the process is “not yet finished”.
Mr Hollinrake told GB News that Keir Starmer is ‘selling our national interest down the river’
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Mr Norris told the People’s Channel: “This is a quasi-judicial process. The process is not finished yet.
“It ends with the Secretary of State for Housing and Planning, Steve Reed, will make a final determination based on all the information.
“Based on the plans, based on information submitted by many parties, including ourselves in the Home Office, based on local representations, based on the facts.
“And we need to let them have the space to make that judgment.”