Political analyst Paul Connew has warned the Prime Minister is facing a “major problem” over the collapsed espionage prosecution, likening the unfolding saga to both a spy thriller and a political comedy.

The prosecution against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry collapsed in September when the CPS determined the evidence failed to demonstrate China posed a national security threat.

Both individuals maintain their innocence regarding allegations of sharing secrets with Beijing.

Government documents released on Wednesday revealed deputy national security adviser Matt Collins had repeatedly characterised China as “the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security” in witness statements.

Mr Connew said: “Well, in my column today, I said this is turning into a sort of combination of a John le Carré spy thriller and something resembling The Thick of It political satire.

“It’s a show that’s going to run and run. Obviously, Sir Keir has questions to answer despite his statement yesterday.

“Lying to Parliament, as Boris Johnson well knew, is a very serious offence. I’m not sure Sir Keir has lied to Parliament, but you could argue he has plausible deniability — perhaps by not wanting to know what was happening.

“That’s another possible allegation: the old excuse of, ‘I wasn’t sure what it was, I didn’t know anything about it.’ But come on, the buck stops with the Prime Minister.

“And in fact, Sir Ken was right. This isn’t particularly new. It’s a big problem, a major problem, but it’s not new.

“We had Dominic Cummings throwing a hand grenade or perhaps a bomb into it last night, which led three of today’s national newspapers.

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His revelation was that back in 2020, he and Boris Johnson were told in the No10 security bunker by the security services that China was successfully hacking into major sensitive Government data.

“This is a cross-party crisis, not simply Labour’s or Keir Starmer’s, though he’s in the hot seat by being in Government. But it isn’t going away.

“When you look at some of the stats, China is Britain’s third-largest investor in the world. It’s developing the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant a major part of it.

“It has a 10 per cent stake in Heathrow Airport, a 10.5 per cent stake in the National Grid’s distribution network, nearly a 9 per cent stake in Thames Water, good luck with that one, and it’s set to build Britain’s biggest wind turbine plant, to name but a few.

“And that’s the point, we are up to our necks. We’re entangled, enmeshed in Chinese investment, integration, and espionage.

“We can’t do anything about it. We’ve sold out our manufacturing base. We don’t make anything anymore.

“We’re dependent on China for steel, for rare earth elements. China has got us over a barrel.”

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