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Johnson Faces Tory Rebellion in U.K. Parliament Over Huawei Role

Johnson Faces Tory Rebellion in U.K. Parliament Over Huawei Role

(Bloomberg) -- Prominent members of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party are stepping up their campaign to block Huawei Technologies Co. from the U.K.’s next-generation telecommunications networks.

Tory MPs led by former party leader Iain Duncan Smith are targeting a piece of legislation next week, as they try to show Johnson the strength of opposition to the Chinese company’s involvement in Britain’s 5G broadband networks.

The battle is further proof the Huawei issue isn’t going away. That could be problematic for the prime minister as he deals with growing pressure from the U.K.’s security allies, especially the U.S., to bar the Chinese company from 5G entirely.

Johnson Faces Tory Rebellion in U.K. Parliament Over Huawei Role

Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration have urged Johnson to reverse his decision over claims that Huawei is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party and its involvement in 5G could enable spying. Huawei has always denied these allegations.

The transatlantic spat comes at a sensitive time, with Britain due to open talks on a trade deal with the U.S. later this month.

On Tuesday, the group of rebel Conservatives will seek to rewrite the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill -- a relatively minor draft law -- when it’s put to the House of Commons.

Though their proposal would in theory ban operators from using any equipment from so-called “high-risk vendors” beyond Dec. 2022, in reality their goal is to push Johnson to look again at the Huawei issue and take a tougher line.

“This is a new issue for people to get their heads around,” Bob Seely, one of the MPs supporting the move, said in an interview, stressing that the aim is to educate colleagues and change the government’s mind rather than inflict an embarrassing defeat. “The more we explain this to people, the more they’re asking why we’re doing this.”

Large Majority

Johnson angered many MPs on his own side when he gave companies the go-ahead to use Huawei equipment in their 5G infrastructure, so long as it’s restricted to “non-core” parts of the networks and provides no more than 35% of the technology overall.

The rebel Tories’ proposal is highly unlikely to pass, given that they are unlikely to have the numbers to defeat Johnson, who has a majority of 80 in the Commons.

To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs

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