The Shadow Foreign Secretary has unleashed a blistering attack, claiming the Prime Minister is “kowtowing” to the Chinese Communist Party.
Sir Keir Starmer pictured last night (Image: Getty Images)
Dame Priti Patel has accused Sir Keir Starmer of becoming “Beijing’s useful idiot in Britain” in a ferocious response to the Prime Minister’s Guildhall speech on foreign policy. The Shadow Foreign Secretary issued a scathing statement within hours of Starmer setting out a “mature” relationship with China that protects security while allowing co-operation in lower-risk areas.
Dame Priti said: “From China’s continued flouting of economic rules to transnational repression of Hong Kongers in Britain, Starmer’s ‘reset’ with Beijing is a naive one-way street which puts Britain at risk while Beijing gets everything it wants.” She added: “Coming just days after the latest Chinese plot to interfere in our democracy was exposed, his love letter to the Chinese Communist Party is a desperate ploy to generate economic growth following his Budget of lies and is completely ill-judged.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel (Image: Getty)
“While China poses a clear threat to Britain, China continues to back Iran and Russia, and plots to undermine our institutions. Keir Starmer has become Beijing’s useful idiot in Britain.”
In his speech on Monday evening, Sir Keir rejected both David Cameron’s “golden era” of close engagement and the later Conservative “ice age” of confrontation, insisting security remained “non-negotiable” in areas such as defence, AI and critical national infrastructure.
He argued that refusing to engage with the world’s second-largest economy would be “a dereliction of duty” and said British businesses needed “confidence, clarity and support” to compete where risks were low.
The Prime Minister also described his overall approach as “the biggest shift in British foreign policy since Brexit”, insisting internationalism was the only patriotic response to a “more dangerous and unstable” world.
Patel’s attack follows recent reports of alleged Chinese interference in British politics and comes as the Government faces continued criticism over its economic record.
Downing Street has not yet issued a formal response to the “useful idiot” accusation, but Labour sources have previously accused Conservative critics of hypocrisy, pointing to Chinese investment in Hinkley Point C and other projects agreed under David Cameron and George Osborne.
The clash has reignited the political battle over who can be toughest on China, an issue on which opinion polls consistently show the Conservatives leading Labour.
