The new China spy scandal that’s sparking fury at proposed Xi UK visit

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President Xi Jinping should be barred from an international summit in Manchester next year unless Chinese sanctions against British citizens and MPs are lifted first, campaigners,…

President Xi Jinping should be barred from an international summit in Manchester next year unless Chinese sanctions against British citizens and MPs are lifted first, campaigners, including the former Tory minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith, have told the Prime Minister, amid a new spy scandal.

The row comes amid fresh espionage allegations that Chinese spies sought sensitive personal information about MPs who have been sanctioned by Beijing – raising further questions about the treatment of critics of China’s leadership on British soil.

Duncan Smith, is one of nine MPs, Peers and UK citizens who were sanctioned by Beijing in 2021 for spreading “lies and disinformation” after speaking out against human rights abuses of the Uyghur people, which it is argued amounts to genocide.

Others include the current Shadow Foreign Secretary Tom Tugendhat, the human rights lawyer and Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy and the current Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, Nusrat Ghani.

Duncan Smith told The i Paper that an invitation to Xi by the Government would be “spineless” and reveal how desperate it had become for China to help it out of its “economic problems” and accused the Government of “not giving a damn” about China’s sustained “attack” on MPs sanctioned by Beijing.

His intervention comes amid claims that the Foreign Office is seeking to persuade Beijing to lift its remaining sanctions against British figures ahead of next year’s summit, in an effort to avoid an embarrassing diplomatic row.

Following his visit to China in January, former prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said Xi had assured him that sanctions no longer applied to serving British parliamentarians. However, there has been no published formal confirmation that the measures were legally revoked.

Questions also remain over restrictions affecting the families of those targeted, as well as the non-MPs or Lords who were sanctioned, Dr Jo Smith Finley and Sir Geoffrey Nice KC.

The Foreign Office has continued to seek…

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