china pic
In retrospect, her website was a bit suspicious.


MI5 has warned that an award-winning lawyer is in fact a Chinese agent who has infiltrated parliament.

Christine Lee used her firm, Christine Lee & Co, to donate money to politicians in order to create “established links" for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) with current and prospective MPs, the securely service warned. 

The alert followed a "significant, long-running" investigation by MI5, the BBC reported. 

In one instance, Lee’s law firm donated £420,000 over six years to Labour MP Barry Gardiner, who also employed her son as his diary manager. 

Gardiner said he had been "liaising with our security services for a number of years" about Lee and that they assured him “that whilst they have definitively identified improper funding channelled through Christine Lee, this does not relate to any funding received by my office”. 

Nonetheless, her son resigned from Gardiner’s office on Thursday. 

Despite being a front for Chinese spies, Christine Lee & Co was crowned Law Firm of the Year by the Birmingham Law Society in 2014. Coincidentally, 2014 was the first year Lee’s firm funnelled cash to Gardiner. 

Christine Lee & Co’s bare bones website is still active, but reads very differently now. Its claim that “we have been able to overcome cultural differences & obstacles and have developed strong affiliations between the UK and China” looks less cuddly following MI5’s discovery that one of those obstacles was parliamentary democracy. 

With hindsight, the firm’s boast that “We are the first and only UK Chinese law firm authorised by the Chinese Ministry of Justice as a foreign law firm to operate in China” was a clue that Lee enjoyed a uniquely favourable relationship with the CCP. 

Christine Lee & Co’s Google reviews have taken a predictable dive since Lee’s status was revealed, but one user was on to her years ago. “Scam”, wrote ‘poszeudes’ in 2020, giving the Xi Jinping influence shop one star. 

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Comments

Anonymous 14 January 22 08:50

Foreign dictators want to buy influence all over the place.

Ex Aussie PM, Paul Keating, is out there talking about the magnificence of China, but he has been – and may still be – on the advisory board of the China Development Bank.  The China Development Bank is effectively an arm of government, an arm of the communist party.

Russia bought Brexit - a sound investment in sowing discord in a major NATO power.

🐉 14 January 22 09:24

I hope MI5 is checking whether Birmingham Law Society’s prize giving group was compromised…

 

 

Anonymous 14 January 22 09:38

A big hearty lol at the feeble "Russia is Trump and he made the plebs do a Brexit" moaning (turning a blind eye to all of the High Court decisions that have all concluded that the Referendum was validly conducted) in the comments of a story about one of the FBPE movement's shining stars having his office compromised by the Chinese State, and taking half a million quid of her cash.

 

Apparently it's only 'Dark' Money if it's not in a Remainer's pocket.

Anonymous 14 January 22 09:51

@08:50

We can agree that Chinese organisations are necessarily tools of a totalitarian government, by definition. However, I cannot agree that Brexit had any impact on NATO. After all NATO is not EU and we should never forget how the EU handled a brushfire in its own backyard, and how it spiralled into the horror called Srebrenica. 

Vladimir Putin 14 January 22 09:52

I thought I had hidden my tracks pretty well, but you’re right I caused Brexit…

Hackaforte 14 January 22 10:09

Hmmm, the wumao are quite slow off the mark today. Come on CCP, get your money’s worth!

Anonymous 14 January 22 10:12

"I cannot agree that Brexit had any impact on NATO. After all NATO is not EU and we should never forget how the EU handled a brushfire in its own backyard"

Clearly there has been some kind of mistake here.

Everyone in polite society knows that the EU has brought peace to the warring continent of Europe, and is the source of all the light and goodness which now emanates from it. Which is a considerable amount.

The idea that this so-called "NATO", a military alliance of nations which includes the mighty war machine of the United States of America*, could possibly function without the might and wisdom of of Brussels to guide its hand is palpable nonsense. 

Without the EU you would be speaking Russian right now. Literally, right now at this very moment, just honking away in cyrillic about vodka or something. Just look at how Vladimir cowers in terror at the very mention of the name "von der Leyen". He's so scared of her that he doesn't even dare to call her to discuss the invasion of the Ukraine, and has to communicate through her running-dog Joe Biden.

The EU keeps us all safe at night, without it we would be enfeebled troglodytes unable to even get up off the ground.

Go away and do some more reading of the right kind of newspaper to educate yourself.

 

 

*They're crypto-fascists there you know, and they all eat beef which is made out of steroid infused rats. But not in New York or California. It's true, I read it in the Guardian.

Wumao 14 January 22 10:17

"Hmmm, the wumao are quite slow off the mark today. Come on CCP, get your money’s worth!"

Gah, they're onto us!

 

Xi's fiendish plan to unwind Western Democracy by corrupting the minds of lazy solicitors, and thereby spreading our propaganda by using their innate and unfailing desire to make their semi-informed opinions known loudly and at length in their local boozers, has run aground. And all because of that perceptive free-thinking renegade they call 'Hackaforte'.

Back to the drawing board we go comrades. 

 

Perhaps our next beachhead in our assault on freedom could be a moderately successful cookery blog... niche websites of moderate success being our modus operandi and such.

Anonymous 14 January 22 11:44

Must say America has a tight grip on Britain's tiny mind and soul, increasingly. Any good supplier that is not American is communist. If America gives us a nice piece of trade deal, the red purge might have been more enthusiastic. Otherwise, The UK shall enjoy playing on both size as long as we can milk it. Why not? Big powers always try to influence the UK. We can profit due to the tiny nerves of big countries. Being the 51st state is doom.

And it does appear this might save Boris Johnson from the fall, because it was a Labour MP, of course all Labour MPs are in the pocket of Chinese spys. Two birds, nice.

Vladimir Putin 14 January 22 11:48

I couldn’t have achieved Brexit without the help of that wonderful gang of privileged white men who are angry that the decisions they’ve made over the last forty years haven’t given them the unlimited riches they think they deserve. 

Anonymous 14 January 22 12:12

@vlad

 

You bastard! I bet you were the one that snuck into my house last night and moved my coffee table so I banged my shins on it this morning too!

Anonymous 14 January 22 13:03

Byline news interviewed British farmers who voted for Brexit who now regret what they believed to be going back to the old ways (haha), who said they were sold by the American influencers.

Brexit predates D Trump, so the America can blame the UK for voting D Trump in a way.

Brexit clearly was about the attention grabbing facebook technology and 3rd party data users who brainwashed the British public, and there was the wasted time from the remain campaign after the assassination of Jo Cox, and Brexit campaign never stopped winning votes. 

Of course, Britons must also blame themselves for being economically illiterate. Just wave flags and you'll be fine.

Anonymous 14 January 22 13:37

"of course all Labour MPs are in the pocket of Chinese spys"

Absolute rubbish! Wash your mouth out with soap and water.

 

They also gladly take money from Iranians.

Anonymous 14 January 22 13:39

"the assassination of Jo Cox"

Careful now...

 

If you rattle those bones any longer and harder they'll be worn down to talcum powder before you want to wheel them out at the next election.

Anonymous 14 January 22 13:41

"Byline news interviewed..."

Who?

 

Is that the sister publication of the Epoch Times?

Or is it just what they call Infowars' Sunday supplement?

Tuka 14 January 22 14:25

Funny how many say the Tories are corrupt but they wash their hands of the equally corrupt Labour party

Disgruntled 14 January 22 15:22

Like most firms mine is not allowed to act for Chinese clients. Apparently the CCP only allows £150k to be exported legally. Therefore acting for Chinese citizens can lead to money laundering. Miss Lee would do well to remember that….

Anonymous 14 January 22 15:56

We British do not need energy, especially cheap energy. Britain must have the most expensive things, because expensive means the best.

Leave the French to build our nuclear plants without a partner. We rely on the ally's efficiency completely when we have lost the technology to build the plant by ourselves, due to old age killing some of our oldest people before they could pass on their knowledge and wwii era wisdom. 

Anonymous 14 January 22 16:00

@15:22

The currency control is taking a bit too long. Wish I had transferred my family wealth when I was a student when there was no Chinese law against transferring your money to any bank account as if it is your own!

The second largest regret after buying coffee with bitcoin in those days.

Anon 14 January 22 16:26

Isn't this what every nation on the planet does? Attempt to buy influence in the governments of foreign states? How do you think Saudi Arabia keeps getting its arms shipments? Or South America experienced so many wars?

Anonymous 14 January 22 18:08

The main thing is whether this bombshell Labour mishap can save our supreme leader BoJo. It better does, or the MI5 will be announcing foreign spys in the profession every week from now! 

Does a cutting-edge strongman political affiliation somehow attribute to what it takes to become an award winning lawyer (which should be based on merit)?  

Iain Duncan Smith who looks like an Aussie is having his moment. They all do until they get RCEP-ed. 

Anon 14 January 22 23:33

Will the SRA look at this? Leave papers on a train and you are struck off. Allegedly act as an agent for a foreign government….

Nottinghamian 20 January 22 23:19

How sh*t must the other firms in Birmingham be to get beaten by a sole trader focussing on spying?

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