Senior Tory revealed as Huawei cheerleader in Brussels

As the ongoing controversy over Huawei engulfs Theresa May’s cabinet, a senior Conservative politician with a controversial lobbying history has emerged as one of the Chinese telecommunications company’s leading advocates in Brussels. On Wednesday the prime minister sacked her defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, after he was accused of leaking secret discussions about Huawei that suggested May “overruled” senior ministers and security warnings to let the Chinese tech giant help build Britain’s new 5G mobile internet network. Those concerns do not appear to have resonated with Nirj Deva, a Tory MEP and number two on the party’s list for the upcoming European Parliament elections, who recently urged colleagues to back Huawei in an upcoming vote in Brussels. “I would ask you to make decisions based on facts, rather than unfounded allegations and to consider the very real implications of banning Chinese technology from our market,” Deva wrote to colleagues on 12 March in a leaked email seen by openDemocracy and SourceMaterial. “There has not been a single instance of foul play detected on any Huawei product.”