Britain’s Keir Starmer must stop bowing to China — and stand up for freedom

Prime Minister Keir Starmer earned himself no leadership points last week when he and his Labour government rammed through approval of China’s plans to establish a spy nest mega-embassy near the Tower of London, despite fierce opposition at home and abroad. 

Starmer’s decision was the clearest example yet of his deferential approach to Beijing since taking office: avoid confrontation, prioritize engagement above all and hope to keep any problem quiet.

But it isn’t working.

Intelligence sources warn that the new compound will likely be equipped with sophisticated surveillance capabilities, allowing Beijing unprecedented monitoring of the British capital.

MI5 and MI6 have previously briefed Downing Street that China seeks to embed covert intelligence infrastructure within its “diplomatic” walls. 

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command is investigating recent activity at the site, following reports that protesters were being photographed from within the compound.

Starmer’s approval followed nonetheless, part of his pattern of leniency and complacency toward China since he took office in 2024.

His government says that his goal is to lay a foundation that will allow deeper conversation and even “partnership” with China on issues of security and human rights.

Yet when asked directly to condemn the harsh sentencing of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong — a matter of deep import to the UK’s 300,000 Hong Kongers — Starmer declined to do so.

And he’s refused to personally and unequivocally condemn the incarceration of British citizen Jimmy Lai.

With a high-stakes visit to Beijing this week, Starmer is hoping China will throw Britain an economic lifeline, seeking new projects in finance, clean energy and tech to offset stagnation at home.

Yet these potential gains come with strings attached: Any appearance of yielding to Beijing risks undermining Britain’s credibility with allies, including the United States and the European Union — and further emboldening China’s authoritarianism in Hong Kong.

He’s looking in the right place for the wrong thing.

Instead of approaching Beijing as a supplicant seeking trade favors, Starmer has the rare opportunity to stand firm as a leader who defends what historically has been a jewel in the British crown: the principles of free speech, the rule of law and the protection of his own citizens.

Starmer could come home with Jimmy Lai.

Last month, Lai was found guilty of sedition and “collusion with foreign forces” in a national security trial that began in December 2023 and ended two long years later.

The conviction paves the way for a lifetime prison sentence for the 78-year-old activist.

It’s a bleak future for the founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, who has been languishing in solitary confinement since he was arrested in August 2020 — punished not for committing violence but for publishing the truth.

Securing Lai’s release would do more for Britain’s moral authority than any communiqué or commercial agreement.

It would signal that Britain still stands for the principles it has long championed in Europe and the wider world.

Lai underscores the very human stakes behind the decisions Starmer faces in Beijing.

The Hong Konger’s story isn’t one of a revolutionary army or a street uprising.

It’s the story of a 12-year-old boy who fled mainland China and became a successful businessman and newspaperman, a story of true grit and an entrepreneurial spirit.

It’s the story of a citizen resisting authoritarian power through truth — a story that finds its closest European parallel in Václav Havel, the Czech dissident who recognized that regimes survive only when people agree to live inside official lies.

Like Havel, Lai’s defiance was quiet but relentless: He published the truth day after day in full view of a government that demands obedience not just in action but in language.

For that audacity, Lai languishes in prison.

Starmer has a choice, too.

He can solidify the nickname circling him here in the United Kingdom — “Kowtow Keir” — and continue the timid diplomacy that gives China’s overlords soft power over Britain’s conscience.

Or he can act decisively and make history.

What has made Britain “Great” in the past was its staunch action against authoritarianism in all its forms.

The British government and its people helped protect Europe during the Cold War, defended dissidents in the Soviet bloc, held strong against the Nazis during World War II, and offered safe haven to exiles and victims of conscience.

Starmer can join those historic heroes.

In doing so, he would remind the world that Britain doesn’t sacrifice principle for profit, and that it still protects its citizens even when doing so angers the powerful.

The question is, will he even try?

Elisha Maldonado is the global head of communications for the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation.