The British government has undermined the spy probe in China to protect Beijing bonds, said the officials

The government of Sir Keir Starmer has fatally undermined an investigation into Chinese espionage against Westminster politicians to protect trade and diplomatic relations of the United Kingdom with Beijing, according to senior British officials, despite the fact that a hostile state has infiltrated the heart of British democracy.

Senior British officials have told the FT that the decision of the prosecutors to suppress the so-called espionage in China has come after a huge dispute that opposed the international security advisers of Starmer and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs against the Ministry of the Interior, the latter wanting to get ahead with the case.

The figures of the Higher Government believe that the dispute was born out of a desire among the security advisers and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to upset China, the United Kingdom seeking to improve links with its third trading partner.

The accusation collapsed after security officials said they would not testify that China could be defined as an “enemy”, an important element for a prosecution under the official secret law, that alleged spies had been accused of violation.

This despite British prosecutors – supported by testimonies from one of the same British security officials – arguing earlier this year in a hostile spy case that an enemy included “any country with a threat to our national security”.

The national security strategy, published in June, warned that China had increased “espionage” and “interference in our democracy and undermine our economic security” in recent years. However, he also warned that the United Kingdom wanted to increase trade.

The document – supervised by National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell and informed by the unpublished “China Audit” of the government – also warned that the United Kingdom had to “reduce the risk of misunderstanding and bad communication” which had characterized its relations with Beijing in recent years.

The latest revelations are likely to cause a new fury to Westminster after the collapse of the spy case last month, when the Crown prosecution service said that he would not carry out Christopher Cash, 30, from Whitechapel in eastern London, and Christopher Berry, 33, of Witney in the Oxfordshire.

Cash had been a parliamentary researcher with a research group in China Hawkish at the time of his arrest, and was accused of having allegedly transmitted information on deputies to a Chinese spy.

The two men have always fiercely defended their innocence. The pair was to be tried this month.

Last week, the justice and internal affairs of the Parliament select committees, led by Labor deputy Andy Slaughter and the conservative deputy Dame Karen Bradley respectively, demanded new explanations of prosecutors on the reasons why they had abandoned the case.

The fight between the Interior Ministry, head of internal security, and the Foreign Affairs Office and Starmer’s security advisers exploded at a meeting in September, four officials said.

The meeting attended Powell, deputy national security advisor Matthew Collins, the permanent subsecretary of Foreign Office Olly Robbins and the officials of the Home Office.

This group would have informed the Ministry of the Interior that Collins would not be able to testify that China was an enemy, officials said.

Powell, a veteran from the Blair era who was brought back by Starmer to strengthen his foreign policy team, chaired the meeting, two officials said.

Collins had previously made a statement in a previous espionage case pursued under the official law on secrets involving Bulgarian nationals spied on the name of Russia in the United Kingdom.

During this trial, Collins told court that the presence of people in Great Britain operating under the direction of the Russian intelligence services was “intrinsically prejudicial to the security or interests of the United Kingdom”.

This was the basis of the argument of the accusation that Russia was an enemy. Six Bulgarian nationals have been found guilty of spying for Russia in the trial that the police described as one of the most important espionage cases to be brought to Great Britain for decades.

On Sunday, other government officials insisted for the FT that the CPS had simply examined the evidence it had already received in 2023 and decided that it was not as strong as it first thought.

They said that neither Collins nor Powell had withdrawn evidence and that Collins had never promised to describe China as an enemy in court when he first submitted his testimony to the CPS under the previous government.

Experts in charge said that the reluctance of the United Kingdom security advisers to qualify China an “enemy” before the court probably left the CPS of other choice than to abandon the proceedings.

Stephen Parkinson, director of public prosecutions, said, however, that when the accusation decision was taken for the first time, she had “correctly” concluded “there was sufficient evidence to continue”, but since then there had been a “failure of evidence”, without developing.

A spokesperson for the Office Cabinet said there had been no “important change in the evidence provided by the government” and said that it was “totally inaccurate” to suggest that Powell “made decisions concerning the content of the control of the witness”.

The government has always said that the decision not to continue had been taken by the CPS “independently”.

Alicia Kearns, one of the deputies who was to testify, said that the Prime Minister had questions to answer and that the government had to “disclose the decision -making process to the British people in the interest of which the prosecution was brought”.

“Starmer had the power to ensure that the trial could take place,” Kearns told the FT.

“His ministers or most higher advisers acted with all his knowledge, in contradiction and in contempt for his wishes to climb the CPS’s ability to continue – what is?”

The spokesperson for the Office Cabinet said it was “completely false” to say that there was a “pressure” of Downing Street to kill the case.