Prince Andrew urged to stay out of sight after ‘Chinese spy’ scandal

Andrew has been invited to join about 70 members of the wider royal family at Buckingham Palace for the Christmas lunch this week. However, there is anxiety over how his public attendance could detract from the festivities. While sources close to the King maintain that his brother is “bound in blood” to the royal family, he will be discouraged from attending events where he will be seen joining them in public. That includes the royal family walk to church on Christmas Day in Sandringham.

• Chinese spy latest: ‘operative’ linked to Prince Andrew may be named

While Thursday’s lunch is ­private, ­arrivals are likely to be photographed. With this in mind, sources have ­advised that the duke should stay away or, at the very least, make a discreet arrival and departure, away from the cameras.

There is no inclination to strip ­Andrew of his membership of the ­Order of the Garter, which historically has ­only happened in rare instances of crimes such as high treason.

The suspected spy, H6, has been linked to more politicians, including a former cabinet minister. He was photographed with Brandon Lewis when ­Lewis was Tory party chairman in 2018. There is no suggestion that Lewis, a former lord chancellor, has done anything wrong.

Lewis said: “I am unaware of the identity of H6 and have never carried out any business relationship with China in my government role or in a personal capacity. As party chairman, I attended a large number of functions at which there were a variety of guests and if H6 and I were attending the same event this was coincidence only.”

As well as being photographed with two former prime ministers, Baroness May of Maidenhead and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, H6 travelled with John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister who died last month, on a delegation to China in 2010.

Calls are growing for transparency over Andrew’s trade envoy role and for the name of the alleged spy to be made public.

• Scrutinise Prince Andrew’s China contacts, Labour peer demands

The ­Labour peer Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, a member of the intelligence and security committee during Andrew’s time as a trade envoy, said: “He took several trips to China on behalf of the government and would have been introduced to senior government and business figures. In the light of recent revelations, it becomes even more urgent for his relationships with Chinese officials to be examined in detail.”

Andrew has denied wrongdoing and said he ceased all contact with H6 after receiving advice from the government. Buckingham Palace staff are understood to be investigating the dates that H6 entered the palace and other royal buildings.

It is thought that the alleged spy, whose attempt to appeal against a ban on entering the UK was rejected, could be named this week. If an anonymity order is not overturned, Nigel Farage has said that his Reform UK party is prepared to use parliamentary privilege to name the Chinese businessman.

Dame Angela Eagle, the Home Office minister, said that the alleged spy posed a threat, “especially in his ­relationship with Prince Andrew”.

China hawks in parliament have warned there are “many, many more” Chinese spies seeking influence in Britain as they urged ministers to get tougher with Beijing.

The former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith will seek to drag ministers to parliament on Monday to be questioned about Chinese influence in Britain as he warned the country was a “big target” for President Xi.

He said that the Chinese United Front Work Department was seeking out influential people in Britain to “get alongside them and feed back information, weaknesses that they see, to allow them further follow-up with much more specific spying taking place later on”.

Saying this was happening “in plain view”, he told Today on BBC Radio 4: “We’re dealing with the tip of the iceberg. The fact is there are many more like him [H6] in the UK. There are many more doing the job that he’s been doing”.

Duncan Smith accused Sir Keir Starmer of “abandoning all idea of recognising [China] as any kind of threat at all”, urging him to put Bejing on the top tier of the foreign influence registration scheme, a programme designed to monitor overseas attempts to sway government.

He added: “The reality is that there are many, many more involved in exactly this kind of espionage that’s taking place. The reality for us is very simple — China is a very clear threat.”

Tom Tugendhat, the Conservative former security minister, said that revelations about the Duke of York were the “tip of the iceberg”, saying he was “absolutely certain that there are members of the United Front Work Department who are active right now in attempting to influence journalism, academics, politics, and the whole lot”.

Some MPs are understood to be planning to use parliamentary privilege to name H6 if the issue is debated in parliament on Monday. Jim McMahon, the local government minister, warned them that the right “should be exercised with caution”. He told Times Radio: “It’s not something that I’d be queuing up to do today in the context of the person being known to the authorities.”