Nigel Farage said that he fears post-Brexit Britain has swapped one master for another, now being bound by bureaucrats in Beijing instead of Brussels.
The leader of the Brexit Party called on Conservative party Members of Parliament to rebel against Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei to help build Britain’s 5G network, which Mr Farage described as “the worst decision taken by a UK government for many years”.
“Once Huawei is in the 5G network, getting it out will be all but impossible. For this reason, Johnson must reverse his decision to allow Huawei to take such a big position in creating 5G. A full-scale rebellion within Britain’s ruling Conservative Party is the only way he can be guaranteed to change his mind,” Farage wrote in Newsweek.
“I think the time has come for people to pick sides. The question is: are we to remain with the Western democracies that have always been our allies, or are we to throw our lot in with the Chinese Communist Party?” he asked.
The government has said that Huawei will only have access to the “periphery” and not the “core” of the network, however, White House officials warned the British government that the Chinese tech firm has backdoor access built into its networks, leading to fears that the company could be used as a spying tool of the regime in Beijing.
Mr Farage condemned the cosy relationship the British establishment and even Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s family have with the Chinese Communist Party.
“The ugly truth is that China has bought and paid for the UK establishment. Our elite has been captured, and not for the first time,” he said, adding: “I believe that the same establishment that sold out our nation to the European Union is now selling us out to China.”
Farage said that “many of the influences around Boris Johnson are pro-China – up to and including members of his own family” — including his father Stanley, who reportedly held a secret 90-minute meeting Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to London.
The meeting was only unearthed after the Prime Minster’s father accidentally emailed the message relayed to him by the ambassador to the BBC.
The arch-Brexiteer also pointed to the Mrime minister’s younger brother, Jo, who he pointed out “was Britain’s Universities Minister until 2019. During his time in post, he endorsed the University of Reading’s partnership with China’s Nanjing University, which specialises in — you guessed it –information, science and technology. ”
Mr Farage, who is set to return to Washington DC next week to meet with Senators and Congressmen, said that he fears Britain’s “crucial trade negotiations with the U.S. are going backwards and not forwards”.
Boris Johnson recently cancelled a planned visit to the White House after a row with President Donald Trump over Chinese involvement in the newly independent United Kingdom.
Mr Trump reportedly slammed the phone down on the Prime Minister during a row on the subject, prompting Downing Street to cancel the trip over fears of widening the rift between the two leaders.
“For a British prime minister not to visit the most pro-UK President in years — a man who even returned the bust of Sir Winston Churchill to the Oval office — tells its own story about how poor relations appear to be,” warned Farage.
“Even the [Democrat] Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has taken a rare stand and united with Republicans against the British position on the Huawei issue. It seems to me the prospect of any trade deal getting through Congress at the moment is virtually zero,” he concluded.
Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka