Former spies and security officials have cast doubt on US threats to limit intelligence sharing if Britain presses ahead with plans to allow Huawei access to 5G telecoms networks.
In a move which would mark a significant escalation in the tensions between Washington and London over the Chinese telecoms group, President Donald Trump is expected to repeat the warnings when he meets Theresa May, the prime minister, during his three-day visit to Britain next week.
But former senior figures from within the US and UK intelligence communities say the threats are “not realistic” and do not appreciate the depth of the relationship which dates back more than 75 years.
“We are not going to cut off our noses to spite our faces,” said one former US intelligence chief. “They are hamfisted threats from people who don’t really understand how the relationship works.”
Peter Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser, added: “I can’t believe a way won’t be found to ensure [intelligence sharing] continues, despite what is being said in public.”
A final decision by the UK on Huawei is on hold until after Mr Trump’s visit, although a leaked report from a National Security Council meeting in April suggested Mrs May would grant Huawei restricted access to 5G networks before she steps down.
On Friday, Esther McVey, one of the Conservative MPs bidding to replace Mrs May, said the UK should listen to the US warnings.
“As prime minister I would not be prepared to put UK security and our critical security partnerships at risk,” Ms McVey said. “The inclusion of Huawei in our 5G network is not a risk we as a country should take.”
Dominic Raab, one of her rivals, said that provided the contracts protected national security, Huawei should be allowed to invest.
“We’ve got Huawei investments already in infrastructure projects,” he said. “We’ve got international investment going into nuclear reactors. I don’t think we want to turn away that international investment. But we do need to make sure absolutely that the contracts are there to protect our security.”
The government refused to comment on the Trump intervention. “When a decision has been made we’ll set that out to parliament,” said one government aide.
Over the past few months the US has issued repeated threats that the special intelligence relationship with the UK was in jeopardy over Huawei amid fears that the company’s equipment and software could be used by the Chinese state for espionage or to launch destructive cyber attacks.
Washington has said it will not take any risks on Huawei and has already taken steps to ban its equipment, leading to a deterioration in relations with Beijing.
Limiting intelligence sharing with the UK would not be straightforward, the former security officials said, because American and British spies currently have largely unrestricted access to each other’s databases and reports. The former US spy chief estimated about 80 per cent of intelligence was currently shared between the UK and US.
The UK foreign and domestic intelligence services, MI6 and MI5 respectively, work closely with their US counterparts, the CIA and FBI, especially on counter-terror operations.
But security chiefs consider the relationship between the communications intelligence services, GCHQ in the UK and the NSA in the US, the most important.
While the partnership is asymmetrical, with the US providing far more intelligence to the UK than vice versa, the NSA is still reliant on GCHQ’s network of UK and overseas listening posts to help collect bulk communications data.
On overseas combat operations there is also extensive intelligence co-operation. In 2015, the former prime minister David Cameron said the UK and US had worked together “around the clock” to track down and kill the Isis terrorist Mohammed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, in a drone strike in Syria.
The Ministry of Defence has acknowledged there is a heavy presence of US intelligence personnel at the Royal Air Force base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire.
