UK Minister Calls for Stronger Laws After Chinese Spy Found Operating in Parliament

Detail of an MI5 Security Service Interference Alert (SSIA) identifying Christine Ching Kui Lee as "an agent of the Chinese government” operating in the British Parliament, issued by the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons on Jan. 12, 2022. House of Commons/PA

The UK needs to strengthen its laws to prosecute foreign agents engaged in political interference activities, Home Secretary Priti Patel said after a Chinese Communist spy was found to have been operating in the British Parliament.

Britain’s MI5 security agency took the unusual step of sending an alert to Parliament warning that an individual named Christine Ching Kui Lee has been “knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”

The alert, which was made public on Jan. 13, said Lee has been facilitating financial donations to British political parties and politicians, and warned that anyone contacted by her should be “mindful of her affiliation with the Chinese state and remit to advance the CCP’s agenda in UK politics.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel said it is “deeply concerning” that UK parliamentarians have been targeted.

Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel leaves Downing Street after attending a cabinet meeting in central London on Oct. 27, 2021. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

But she told broadcasters: “This development has come as a result of the strong structures the United Kingdom has in place to identify foreign interference or any potential threats to our democracy.”

She said Christine Lee has been the subject of a “long-standing investigation.”

Although the security services have put MPs on alert, Patel said the activity was currently “under the criminal threshold.”

She said “more alerts of this nature” can be expected in the future, and the government is “working to look at what measures we can take to strengthen our laws, our legislations, to effectively lead to the type of prosecutions that we currently cannot deliver.”

Former Conservative Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who made public the MI5 alert, expressed frustration over the lack of further measures against Lee.