He adds: "Until you know who this was, you don't know for certain whether they had encountered you, whether they've come to your office, whether they'd had any access to your staff - we just don't know until you know." He says: "It's quite ridiculous to have this burbling around all over the estate and nobody quite knowing who this is they were talking to." The former Tory leader tells Sky News that these allegations are "very serious indeed", and says it's "not the first time" that Chinese spies have infiltrated parliament.Īs a result of these infiltrations, he says it is "puzzling" that the government "still does not want to call China a systemic threat".Īsked about a report in The Spectator that MPs could use parliamentary privilege tomorrow to name the two men who were arrested - and particularly the parliamentary researcher - without fear of prosecution, Sir Iain said he is not planning on doing so himself, but calls on the security authorities to agree to him being named. Sir Iain Duncan Smith has called on the security authorities to name the alleged Chinese spy in parliament, saying it is a "matter of national security". He also says China is not "playing ball" by helping to stop Russia's invasion of Ukraine and nor is it helping to deal with climate change, so the idea that engagement with them is "critical" to those aims is a "nonsense". He calls on the government to "get our policy straight", saying that we can engage as Rishi Sunak wants, but on our terms. Such a policy "weakens the response of the security services," he says. Sir Iain notes that when Rishi Sunak ran for leader last summer, he labelled China a "systemic threat", but since then, the policy has been "watered down". Turning to the bigger issue of the UK's stance towards China, he says the government's foreign policy is "very much under serious question now". He says he himself did not know about this until yesterday when the Sunday Times broke the story. In reference to James Cleverly's recent visit to China, he says: "To what degree did the foreign secretary know about this arrest when he was going off to Beijing? Was he informed about this spying going on in parliament, and if so, why was this not raised at the time? Why were MPs not told about it?" Sir Iain Duncan Smith has told Sky News that Rishi Sunak's China strategy of engagement is very much in question after it was revealed that an alleged Chinese spy worked closely with senior Tories in parliament. Join us tomorrow from 6am for the very latest.
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