SIR Keir Starmer will reportedly approve a new Chinese mega-embassy in London next month despite major security concerns.
The controversial plan has been given the go ahead by both MI5 and MI6 after Beijing warned the PM would face “consequences” if the plans don’t get approved.
Starmer will submit his final verdict on December 10 with the result now looking like a “formality”, a Whitehall source told The Times.
The Home Office and the Foreign Office are not set to raise any formal objections to the plan as long as the appropriate “mitigations” are put in place.
They say the 20,000 square metre embassy can be built as long as protecting national security remains a top priority.
Both departments are expected to submit formal responses to the plans in the coming days.
Starmer is also expected to travel to China next year as Britain seeks to bolster economic relations with Beijing, despite concerns that it is carrying out large-scale espionage against the UK.
The super embassy has already caused a headache within the Government.
The row centres on China’s bid to turn the Royal Mint Court site, beside the Tower of London, into what would be the biggest embassy in Europe.
The plan has set off alarm bells across Whitehall, with security chiefs warning the site sits near key communications cables used by banks and government offices, making it a potential eavesdropping hub.
China has refused to hand over full internal blueprints, claiming it was “not appropriate” to disclose every room layout, further fuelling suspicion.
A deadline for the ruling over if the embassy will be approved has already been pushed back twice in just two months.
The second of which came this week and caught the furious eye of Beijing.
In an explosive outburst, Beijing accused the UK of “acting in bad faith and without integrity”.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said China expressed “grave concern and strong dissatisfaction” at the delay.
“Adding the UK must “immediately fulfill its obligations and honour its commitments, otherwise the British side shall bear all consequences”.
The diplomatic clash comes amid mounting tensions over Chinese espionage – just weeks after prosecutors dramatically dropped a high-profile spy case against two British men.
Parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, 30, and academic Christopher Berry, 33, had been accused of spying for Beijing, but the Crown Prosecution Service abandoned the case last month.
Both men denied the allegations.
China could build sealed ‘spy dungeon’ in mega-embassy
By Martina Bet
CHINA could build a sealed “spy dungeon” in its planned London mega-embassy without the UK ever knowing, Tories have warned.
Beijing is refusing to explain what greyed-out and redacted areas in blueprints for the Cultural Exchange Building at Royal Mint Court will be used for.
But senior Tory Kevin Hollinrake claims the request is “pointless” because a planning agreement already gives it permission to build certain rooms with no UK inspection or oversight.
And legal documents show China is allowed to apply its own construction standards in areas exempt from verification.
Mr Hollinrake said: “Ministers have deliberately stuck their heads in the sand over the clear national security threat posed by this mega-embassy.
“First, they ignored secret plans for an underground facility. Now they’re effectively giving the Chinese Communist Party a green light to construct spy infrastructure or even sinister detention facilities.
“The Government must reject this planning application, just as Ireland and Australia have done with CCP spy hubs.”
Local Tory councillor Peter Golds has also sounded the alarm, asking why hundreds of pages of planning reports failed to mention the secret rooms at all.
He warned that public access to this information is a legal requirement, even for sensitive buildings, and said residents are demanding answers.
Human rights groups including Amnesty International and the China Dissent Network have said Chinese embassies have previously been used to monitor, intimidate and silence dissidents abroad.
The collapse of the case stunned Westminster and has raised fresh questions over the scale of China’s reach inside Britain.
It also came as MI5 chief Sir Ken McCallum warned that Chinese state actors pose a threat to the UK “every day”, urging ministers to stay alert to Beijing’s influence operations.
Shadow housing secretary Sir James Cleverly called for the planning review to have access to “full unredacted drawings” for the plans.
He said Sir Keir should follow the lead of Ireland and Australia when faced with similar proposals from Russia and ensure his government throws out the “sinister application”.
The Liberal Democrats accused the Government of “kicking the can down the road”.
Calum Miller, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, said: “It’s beyond time this embassy proposal was put out of its misery – and that the Government send a signal to China that we will no longer roll over in the face of their industrial espionage.”
It comes after reports suggested that Sir Starmer will travel to China next year.
His trip is set to be centred around an attempt to bolster economic relations with Beijing, say Sky News.
Travel plans are yet to be confirmed but should Starmer go then he will be the first PM to visit China since Theresa May in 2018.
