China's Secret Police Offering Western Government Insiders Big Cash for "Low-Level Information"
Extraordinary new espionage alert issued by MI5 and circulated inside Kier Starmer's Parliament.
LONDON — Chinese intelligence officers are offering Westminster insiders strikingly large sums of money for what looks like low-level political gossip – using “head hunters” on LinkedIn to offer paid “research tasks” – and effectively flooding Keir Starmer’s government ranks with inducements to betray the people of Britain, in Beijing’s efforts to build long-term relationships to undermine the West.
That is the stark picture painted in an extraordinary new espionage alert issued by MI5 and circulated inside Parliament, which warns that officers of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) “offer large financial incentives for seemingly low-level information in an attempt to build a relationship and encourage the target to gain access to more non-public sensitive information.”
The preferred methods of payment — cash drops in China or cryptocurrency transfers — are highlighted as a warning to British politicians to think very carefully before entering into any such financial relationship with Chinese-linked actors.
The unorthodox disclosure from counter-intelligence officials that are usually tight-lipped to a fault comes on the heels of the collapse of the Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash insider-threat case — a generational scandal The Bureau has reported on extensively, and which involved alleged suitcase-cash payments, and cultivation of a Westminster researcher with access to prominent critics of China in Conservative MP ranks. MI5 does not name Berry or Cash, but the tradecraft it describes could be read as a point-by-point guide to the methods exposed in that case.
The briefing, titled “Security Service Espionage Alert: MSS tradecraft and methodology,” sets out, in unusually explicit language, how a specific “group of highly active officers” from China’s secret police service have been trying to penetrate the “UK democratic system” — especially Parliament and the ecosystem of staffers, consultants and think-tank analysts around it.
MI5 begins with a blunt statement of intent. The Chinese service, it says, “seek to collect sensitive information on the UK to gain strategic advantage,” and the alert has been triggered by “recent examples of attempts to target UK Parliament for intelligence gathering.”
That line alone resonates with what has emerged in the media leaks explaining why the explosive insider case was dropped under Keir Starmer’s government, in which senior national security appointees reportedly played down the risk of non-classified political information being spilled to Beijing through the Cash and Berry pipeline. Reporting in British media has suggested that Starmer’s government opted to preserve trade relations with Beijing rather than allow the damning insider case to proceed in court, a move that has infuriated the US government, which warned that Starmer’s government risks fracturing the Five Eyes intelligence alliance by failing to protect elected officials targeted by Beijing.
What the MSS wants — and why “trivial” titbits matter
The first section of MI5’s pointed alert to British officials is headed, “What do they target?”
MI5 says MSS officers are focused on political and economic material, “particularly of a classified or non-public sensitive nature.” But crucially, they have a “low threshold for what information is considered to be of value.” Because their collection effort is broad and sustained, “individual pieces of information fit into a wider collection effort and create a cumulative impact.”
That is exactly how the Berry–Cash pipeline was described in court documents. Berry, a young academic, allegedly channelled “real-time political intelligence” from his former teaching colleague — a parliamentary researcher embedded with Conservative MPs who were seen in Beijing as potential China hawks — into the hands of an MSS handler known only as “Alex.” Those reports, British officials revealed in documents, later surfaced at the very top of the Chinese Communist Party.
The new MI5 document seemingly seeks to underline warnings from that episode. Political insiders are warned not to assume that because something is unclassified, or feels like mere “parliamentary gossip,” it is safe to share for money.
Under the section “Who do they target?”, MI5 draws a map of the political class that extends far beyond elected MPs. “Individuals with direct access to information on the UK democratic system are high priority targets,” the paper states. Where possible, officers approach such people directly. But echoing the Berry–Cash model, MI5 stresses that the MSS also “conducts analysis to understand a target’s social and professional network and potential access, cultivating individuals who are one step removed from the ultimate target.”
That line could easily describe Christopher Cash, the parliamentary researcher who worked for rising Conservative MPs such as Tom Tugendhat — a prominent China hawk exploring ways to tighten laws against Beijing’s infiltration under Rishi Sunak’s government, and someone Chinese officials reportedly viewed as a potential future leader of the Conservative Party.
The Service’s assessment makes clear that the Chinese secret police are seeking to corrupt the entire ecosystem around Westminster, not just MPs.
Parliamentary staff manage the flow of papers and private correspondence, giving the MSS a near-real-time view of Parliament’s internal machinery. Economists shape the forecasts and policy options on which ministers rely, and can become influential public intellectuals in their own right, making arguments that may tilt debate in Beijing’s favour. Think-tank employees and policy analysts prepare drafts and advice that later reach Cabinet tables, providing early insight into government decision-making. Geo-political consultants sit at the junction of business and politics and, as the alert and recent U.S. indictments highlight, can profit from advocating policies that benefit Chinese commercial and diplomatic interests. And a wider cast of professionals identified in the MI5 alert — researchers, lobbyists and aides — act as connective tissue around MPs and peers, giving Chinese intelligence indirect, lower-risk, clandestine access to Britain’s political core.
In the Berry case, it was precisely this one-step-removed structure — a researcher feeding an academic, who in turn reported to “Alex,” an MSS agent working through a front company in China that promoted investment in Britain — who, British officials say, served as the conduit for real-time intelligence on the Conservative leadership race to Xi Jinping’s close ally on the Politburo Standing Committee, reportedly Cai Qi.
The MI5 alert spells out potential criminal exposure under the National Security Act, emphasizing that even unclassified information can trigger prosecution if shared with a foreign intelligence service. It highlights three main offences that could apply to Westminster insiders caught up in Chinese approaches:
Section 1 – Obtaining protected information: Covers any material gathered for or on behalf of a foreign power, even if not formally classified.
Section 3 – Assisting a foreign intelligence service: Criminalizes any act that knowingly helps an intelligence operation of a hostile state.
Section 17 – Obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service: Targets those who accept money or other advantages—such as travel or consulting fees—in exchange for information.