Alicia Kearns MP used an urgent statement on foreign interference to warn ministers that China poses systemic risks to UK infrastructure, academia and defence mobility, raising specific concerns about “dual use kill switches in Chinese made electric buses” and chips in Ministry of Defence vehicles that require personnel “to be silent whilst travelling around our country.”
Kearns said the UK is facing “an ever growing list of actions by the Chinese Communist Party, interfering in our sovereign affairs and trying to undermine our democracy and our country.” Citing alerts from Norway and Denmark about remotely activated shutdown functions in Chinese-built buses, she pressed the government for an update on the investigation into British transport systems.
She also demanded clarity on components installed in defence vehicles, warning that such vulnerabilities could create operational and personal risk for service personnel.
She linked the issue to coercion on UK campuses. Referring to the case of Sheffield Hallam University, she said Chinese security services had “blackmailed” the institution into cancelling research into Uyghur forced labour. She asked for an update on the police investigation and argued that government engagement with vice-chancellors is “inadequate” because universities respond with “naivety and intransigence.”
Kearns criticised ministers for what she characterised as weak deterrence. She noted that after the collapse of the case involving parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash, the government issued “the same rhetorical tap on the knuckles” to Beijing. She also cited threats against activist Chloe Chung and asked why visits by ministers to China were still being planned.
Her core argument was that the government has the tools but is not using them. She urged ministers to place China in the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration scheme, cancel upcoming bilateral trade talks and consider sanctions.
Dan Jarvis, responding for the government, acknowledged the seriousness of the threat and defended the package announced earlier in the day. He said the measures aimed at economic, academic, cyber and espionage risks form a “comprehensive package” and promised further action if required. Jarvis announced that coordination will run through a new counter political interference and espionage plan in the Cabinet Office and pointed to spending on sovereign encrypted capability and counterintelligence support.
He stressed that the government has completed the removal of Chinese-manufactured surveillance equipment from sensitive sites and highlighted the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. On the Foreign Influence Registration scheme, he said the government is “looking closely” at whether China should be added to the enhanced tier but “no decision has yet been made.”
Jarvis defended ministerial engagement with Beijing, arguing that direct contact is necessary to deliver “strong and coherent messages.” He declined to comment on Sheffield Hallam while inquiries are ongoing and said national security remains central to the decision on the new Chinese embassy site.
He concluded by promising continued cooperation with MPs raising these issues, stating that the government will take “tough choices” where needed to protect national security.
Really they accuse Farage of Russian connections yet this lot seem to be exposing themselves as Chinese assets daily!
“national security remains central to the decision on the new Chinese embassy site.”
But whose national security?
Chinese-made cars appear to pose a serious security risk that can’t be mitigated other than by restricting their access to this market. Easier to just bury one’s head in the sand though.
Britain is about the only major economy that does not put a tariff on Chinese electric vehicles. Instead they dump them here & undercut & close our factories. If Rachel needs money, then a 15 to 20% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles would be a good start.
Not a bad idea to be honest but the only issue is the Uk and china have very balanced car import and export.. we sell them 4 billion of UK cars we buy 4 billion of Chinese cars.. so until that changes there will not be a tariff.
Over what period of time? In the USA, there are between 15 and 17 million new car sales, per year.
That’s per year Richard. The U.S. is the UKs biggest market at 9 billion a year with about 6 billion a year of cars from the U.S. being imported.
Shame on the Mayor of London for buying Chinese buses when Dennis Alexander is short of orders.
Public money subsidising Chinese nationalised industries is outrageous
Quote from the BBC website.
“Scottish Labour MP for Falkirk, Euan Stainbank, said: “The reality is the company has not had a consistent pipeline of work because the SNP has been selling out Scottish workers by buying too many buses from abroad.
“Greater Manchester bought more than five times as many buses from Alexander Dennis in Falkirk than the entire Scottish government scheme to date.”
I’m beginning to see why labour needs to replace Starmer with Andy Burnham.
FARCICAL
And still we forget china is a communist that means every Chinese company is part of chinese state power and a tool of the communist party.
Who errrr ordered these cars?
Could it have been the previous administration by any strange chance?
Of course, we must buy from US, there is a huge imbalance of trade. More than 40 B £
We hamstring our defence budget in order to fund the ludicrous idea of ‘net zero’, an idea supported by about ‘net zero’ evidence:
‘The concept of ‘climate crisis’ has a long history and has been increasingly employed by media and politics in recent decades, shaping collective perceptions of climate variability and change. However, in the absence of a critical definition, it risks fostering unrealistic interpretations…..
The Mann-Kendall trend test applied to RIND time series reveals that most indicators do not exhibit statistically significant worsening trends.
This challenges crisis narratives in specific contexts and highlights the need for localised, data-driven adaptation strategies rather than generalised alarm.’
Alimonti, G., & Mariani, L. (Oct. 2025). Quantifying the climate crisis: a data-driven framework using response indicators for evidence-based adaptation policies. Environmental Hazards, 1–30.
And how, exactly, do China and India, two of the world’s biggest emitters, address ‘net zero’?:
‘China and India dominated coal development in the first half of 2025, as the two countries had more new proposals, construction starts and coal plants commissioned than the rest of the world combined……there were 74.7GW and 12.8GW of newly proposed coal projects in China and India, respectively, in the first half of 2025, compared to just 11GW in the rest of the world.’
Long since time for Britain to ditch ‘net zero’
You are quoting the Alimonti study completely out of context.. that study is not a study that in anyway denys climate change is happening..it looks that the media concept of a present global climate crisis. As it is now.. the RIND is about actions and impacts studied in the past.. and what they are saying is that man made climate change is having different effects in different places so it is incorrect to us the term global climate crisis…. But they are in no way saying a 2-4 degree increase will fine or that the predicted model will not happen.. what they are saying is the present shift we have seen has not created a global crisis but a number of regional ones.
No-one is denying that climate change is happening. Climate change has always ‘happened’, is always happening.
This is what he is, in fact, saying, has been saying for some time:
‘Since the observed emergence of most of the CIDs (Climate Impact Drivers) presented in IPCC Table 12.12, and confirmed by the analysed updated time series, as well as most of the RINDs (Response Indicators) in Table 1, do not exhibit worsening trends, our overall view is that the ‘climate crisis’, as portrayed by many media sources today, is not evident yet.’
And he knows what he is talking about:
Alimonti, G., & Mariani, L. (2023). Is the number of global natural disasters increasing? Environmental Hazards, 23(2), 186–202
That is why the whole idea of ‘net zero’ is so absurd.
What really threatens national security is the government ruinously expensively (ultimately trillions of pounds) tilting at imaginary windmills all the while neglecting to restore the country’s credible conventional deterrent.
Can no techno geek actually demonstrate the existence of a remote kill switch in a bus? Personally I do not believe they exist, if they did they would be demonstrable. It’s a bus, get hold of one and prove it has a kill switch in its innards then expose the Chinese for what they are. There is no way such a thing can be hidden from those that know.