For years now, Mr S has been covering the long-running farce that is China’s proposed new ‘super-embassy’. Back in 2018, Beijing bought the site of the old Royal Mint, declaring their intention to turn the Tower Hamlets location into the country’s largest diplomatic mission in Europe. But for the past seven years, various planning concerns have held up the development.
For one thing, there’s the fact that that Tower Hamlets is almost 40 per cent Muslim: Beijing does not exactly have a good record on Uighur Muslims, given its appalling crackdown in Xinjiang. Then, there’s national security concerns: Senators on the US Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have warned that the site risks ‘interference and surveillance’ from Beijing and poses a threat ‘for sensitive infrastructure like London’s financial services’. Reassuring stuff eh?
Yet despite all this, it seems that Labour ministers are determined to press on. Various members of the cabinet have visited China in recent months – including Ed Miliband, the high priest of Net Zero, just this week. In the hunt for the elusive growth, investment is welcomed from all corners of the globe: even if Beijing’s recent offer of £600 million is both tainted and insultingly small…
Still, the battle to stop the Tower Hamlets super-embassy continues regardless. And Mr S hears that a fresh front has now opened up: convincing the Metropolitan Police that the site will be unsafe on public order grounds. Currently, the Met has a stance of ‘non-objection’ to the new site, claiming that there is incomplete data on the size and frequency of anti-CCP protests. But China hawks argue that this is false: there have been previous protests involving many thousands.
Now, a letter seen by Steerpike was sent earlier this week to Jon Savell, Deputy Assistant Commissioner at New Scotland Yard. It noted the protests on 8 February and 15 March and that the Met’s ‘previous contributions to the inquiry have made clear that “concerns would remain” if large and disruptive protests would continue. We have shown that they will continue.’
The letter therefore asks Savell and the Met to listen to their bobbies on the ground who know that there is insufficient space at the embassy for protest. Various grandees have signed the letter: Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Robert Jenrick, Kevin Hollinrake and Tom Tugendhat from the Tories plus Labour’s Blair McDougall, James Naish and Marie Rimmer. Both Christine Jardine and Luke Taylor of the Liberal Democrats have added their names too alongside the SNP’s Chris Law.
Will the Met now listen to reason – and come out against the ‘super-embassy’?
Comments