\n<\/p>\n
Starmer<\/strong> is now making a statement about the China spy prosecution case.<\/p>\n He says he will publish the witness statements made by the government in the China spy trial case. He says he intends to publish them in full, but they are being checked first.<\/p>\n And he restates the government\u2019s claim that the prosecution failed because of the stance taken by the previous government.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.10 EDT<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Key events<\/p>\n <\/span>Show key events only<\/p>\n Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Tom Tugendhat<\/strong>, the Tory former security minister, got the last question, and he used it to ask about the China spy case.<\/p>\n He said the key question was whether or not the CPS\u2019s decision to charge the two men with spying was valid in the first place.<\/p>\n The real question in this whole debate is whether or not the DPP charged legally and properly. If they did, then the OSA [Official Secrets Act] is valid and all this talk about the National Security Act that I introduced is completely irrelevant.<\/p>\n If they did not. Why is he not charging his successor with abuse of power?<\/p>\n We know the reality, although he has answered the question about evidence, the real question is what political direction did this government give to their officials before they went to give evidence?<\/p>\n In response to the claim that the government gave political orders to prosecutors over this, Starmer<\/strong> replied: \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d<\/p>\n He went on:<\/p>\n I was the chief prosecutor in five years, and I can say in that five years, which included three years under the coalition government, when we were taking difficult decisions on MPs expenses, not once, not once, was I subjected to political pressure of any sort from anyone.<\/p>\n That is the tradition of this country. It\u2019s a proud tradition. It\u2019s one I hold as prime minister, just as I believe it when I was director of public prosecutions.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n John Whitby<\/strong> (Lab) asks about Reform UK, and the conviction of Nathan Gill, the former Reform UK leader in Wales, for taking bribes for making pro-Russian statements in the European parliament.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says Reform UK have serious questions to answer about this. He says voters have a choice – \u201cKremlin cronies sowing division or Labour patriots working for national renewal\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Daisy Cooper<\/strong>, the deputy Lib Dem leader, was standing in for Ed Davey today.<\/p>\n She started by asking about Hongkongers in the UK, and asked if the goverment was putting their security at risk, by not sanctioning Chinese officials making threats directed at them, out of its desire to placate China.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> said that was not true. He said the government supports Hong Kong.<\/p>\n Cooper<\/strong> then said Elon Musk is paying the legal costs of Tommy Robinson, who is on trial for not complying with a demand from counter-terrorism police. She went on:<\/p>\n It is outrageous that a man who has so much control over what people read online every day could be funding someone who sticks far-right extremism on our streets. If this was Putin, the government surely would act. So will the prime minister commission the security services to assess the threat that Elon Musk poses to our democracy and recommend measures to this house that we can take to stop it?<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> said the government had to \u201clook across the board at threats to our democracy and must continue to do so\u201d. But he said he could not comment on an ongoing court case.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.40 EDT<\/p>\n Badenoch<\/strong> says:<\/p>\n The prime minister can\u2019t tell us why Jonathan Powell had a secret meeting, which the security minister said he had no involvement in the case. He can\u2019t tell us why his government did not provide evidence that China was a threat. I suspect the statements would prove that either he\u2019s blaming his civil servants, he\u2019s blaming the media, he\u2019s blaming the last government. He cannot explain why he could not see this case through. He should have seen this case through.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says Badenoch is just \u201cslinging mud\u201d. If the last government had changed the Official Secrets Act earlier, the prosecution could have gone ahead, he says.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.30 EDT<\/p>\n Badenoch<\/strong> claim \u201cthis all stinks of a cover up\u201d. She asks if the witness statements will be published today.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says:<\/p>\n The only process I want to go through is in relation to some of the individuals in the statements, to make sure they know it\u2019s coming up. I can assure the house there\u2019s no substantive delay here \u2026<\/p>\n It\u2019s a process I need to go through. The honourable member will understand why that\u2019s necessary. Then it will be published in full.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.27 EDT<\/p>\n Badenoch<\/strong> claims Starmer has contradicted Dan Jarvis, the security minister. She asks what changed between the two accused being charged and the case being dropped.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says he is going to publish the government witness statements in full, so people can see what the last government said. Then Badenoch will realise what she is saying is \u201centirely baseless\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.25 EDT<\/p>\n Badenoch<\/strong> asks what is the point of having a lawyer for a leader if he cannot even get the law right.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says Badenoch is not a lawyer or a leader.<\/p>\n He says the last government witness statement was submitted in August this year. The September meeting attended by Jonathan Powell, first written about by the Sunday Times, is not relevant.<\/p>\n This is a red herring, a completely scurrilous allegation made by the leader of the opposition party.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.24 EDT<\/p>\n Badenoch<\/strong> says the accused spies were charged under the Tories, but let off by Labour.<\/p>\n She asks if it can really be true that the deputy national security adviser, Matthew Collins, the official who provided the evidence to the CPS, did not discuss this with the national security adviser, Jonathan Powell.<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says that is what he is saying. But he concedes that he will double check.<\/p>\n He says, after the charging decision, the prosecution were very careful about who was allowed to see the witness statements.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Kemi Badenoch<\/strong> says Starmer had to be dragged out to make this statement. She accuses him of \u201cobfuscation\u201d.<\/p>\n She says in 2021 the intergrated review described China as the biggest state based threat to the UK\u2019s economic security.<\/p>\n In 2022 the MI5 director called China a threat.<\/p>\n How did the government fail to provide evidence that China was a threat?<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> says the substantive witness statement for this case was submitted in 2023, when the last government was in power.<\/p>\n He quotes James Cleverly, the former Tory foreign secretary, saying calling China a threat would be impossible and unwise.<\/p>\n And Badenoch was business secretary at the time. In 2-23, the relevant year, she said \u201cwe certainly should not be describing China as a foe\u201d.<\/p>\n And in September 2024 she said: \u201cI have shied away from calling China a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n He accused her of \u201cplaying politics with national security\u201d.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.17 EDT<\/p>\n Starmer<\/strong> is now making a statement about the China spy prosecution case.<\/p>\n He says he will publish the witness statements made by the government in the China spy trial case. He says he intends to publish them in full, but they are being checked first.<\/p>\n And he restates the government\u2019s claim that the prosecution failed because of the stance taken by the previous government.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Updated at\u00a007.10 EDT<\/p>\n Keir Starmer<\/strong> starts by paying tribute to Amess, and to Jo Cox, who was also killed.<\/p>\n And he condemns the death threats to Nigel Farage.<\/p>\n I want to take this opportunity to condemn unequivocally the death threats made against the honourable member for Clacton.<\/p>\n I know the house will welcome the justice that has been done. Whatever our disagreements, we are all parliamentarians.<\/p>\n Starmer says all violence and threats against democracy are unacceptable.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Starmer says government intends to publish in full its three witness statements in China spy case Starmer is now making a statement about the China spy prosecution case. He says he will publish the witness statements made by the government in the China spy trial case. He says he intends to publish them in full,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2153,13137,132,124,323,6413,1347,16765,2131,4229],"class_list":{"0":"post-28191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-china","9":"tag-collapsed","10":"tag-live","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-publish","13":"tag-spy","14":"tag-starmer","15":"tag-statements","16":"tag-trial","17":"tag-witness"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Starmer says not putting political pressure on CPS is ‘proud tradition’, as he knows from being DPP during expenses scandal<\/h2>\n
Starmer sidesteps Lib Dem call for him to order security assessment into threat Elon Musk poses to UK democracy<\/h2>\n
Starmer says Badenoch’s claims about China spy case ‘entirely baseless’<\/h2>\n
Starmer says last government witness submitted in August, before controversial meeting attended by Jonathan Powell in September<\/h2>\n
Starmer says ‘substantive’ government evidence for China spy trial was provided by last Tory administration<\/h2>\n
Starmer says government intends to publish in full its three witness statements in China spy case<\/h2>\n
Starmer condemns ‘unequivocally’ death threats against Nigel Farage, and welcomes conviction of man responsible<\/h2>\n