Suspected Chinese spy targets Harborough MP’s parliamentary aide
A suspected Chinese spy has made an unsuccessful approach to a Harborough councillor.
Councillor Simon Whelband is the leader of the Conservative Party at Harborough District Council - but crucially he also works as a parliamentary aide for Harborough's MP Neil O'Brien, who was sanctioned by China in 2021.
So when MPs were recently warned by MI5 about possible approaches by Chinese spies, especially via LinkedIn, both Cllr Whelband and Mr. O'Brien were certainly possible targets.
And that turned out to be the case. Luckily, Cllr Whelband was able to spot it straight away.
"When the Speaker’s Office emailed about an espionage alert on LinkedIn, I checked my account straight away," said Cllr Whelband.
"My MP was sanctioned by China a few years ago, so I tend to keep an eye on this stuff.
"And sure enough, there was a message sitting there from one of the profiles MI5 had warned about."
He added: "The message itself wasn’t written very well, but that almost makes it more worrying. The fact MI5 felt the need to issue a warning shows how seriously they’re taking it.
"If the wording had been a bit more polished, I can see how someone - especially a newer staffer - might have fallen for it. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen attempts like this around Parliament, and it’s really concerning."
Cllr Whelband said he has reported it to Parliamentary security.
The MI5 issued an alert over Chinese espionage after it found that two recruiters were using online profiles via LinkedIn to contact people working in Westminster on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS), as part of what is believed to be a 'widespread' operation.
Mr O’Brien was one of nine people named on a bizarre sanction list by China back in 2021 after he helped shine a light on their human rights violations.
Talking at the time, Conservative MP, who helped to set up the Parliamentary China Research Group last year, added: “One minute I’m taking the children to school, the next I’m being singled out by an increasingly unpredictable communist superpower!
“But the very fact that China is taking this action against us underlines every point we’ve been making."