Clutching her bag and smiling as she poses for a photo alongside Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2016, Christine Ching Kui Lee has a modest figure. But the 58-year-old lawyer has now been unmasked as a suspected Chinese agent, accused by MI5 of trying to improperly influence MPs on behalf of the country’s ruling Communist Party.

The photo with Corbyn, taken at a Chinese for Labor group event, is part of a series of images showing the extent of her ties to Westminster figures over more than a decade, during which even Theresa May praised her when she was Prime Minister.

Other pictures show her with David Cameron while in Downing Street standing proudly outside the entrance to Number 10. She was also pictured with former Labor MP Tom Watson, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Labor MP Barry Gardiner, who received hundreds of thousands of pounds through Lee’s law firm.

Meanwhile, in a photo from 2019, she is seen posing in a group with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Lee was in the spotlight on Thursday as the subject of a rare warning, known as the Security Services Interference Alert (SSIA), issued by the UK security services and relayed by the Speaker of the House of Commons. , Sir Lindsay Hoyle, to Parliamentarians. .

“I must stress that Lee has facilitated financial donations to sitting and aspiring parliamentarians on behalf of foreign nationals based in Hong Kong and China,” Sir Lindsay wrote in an accompanying letter.

“This facilitation was done in secret to hide the origin of the payments. This is clearly unacceptable behavior and steps are being taken to ensure it stops. »

The SSIA said that Lee had “acted covertly” in coordination with the United Front Work Department (UFWD) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “We believe the UFWD seeks to covertly interfere in British politics by establishing links with established and aspiring MPs across the political spectrum,” he said.

“Lee is engaged in facilitating financial donations to political parties, MPs, MP candidates and those seeking political office in the UK, including facilitating donations to political entities on behalf of foreign nationals.

“Lee has publicly stated that his activities are to represent the Chinese community in the UK and increase diversity. However, the aforementioned activity was carried out in covert coordination with the UFWD, with funding provided by foreign nationals located in China and Hong Kong.

“Lee has significant engagement with people across the UK political spectrum, including through the now-dissolved All Party Chinese Parliamentary Group in Britain, and may aspire to establish other APPGs to advance the CCP’s agenda. »

But who is Lee and how did he seemingly leak into the fabric of Westminster?

Lee married Martin Wilkes, who is also a lawyer, in 1990 and the couple had two children. The couple sold their four-bedroom townhouse in Coleshill, Warwickshire, for £680,000 in 2019, which featured an indoor pool and gym. In a brochure for the property’s sale, a ‘seller overview’ section citing the owners at the time details how they first saw the property in 1996 when looking to expand it. “Our ‘wow moment’ came when we saw the indoor pool complex,” he says, adding, “Our kids were young then and we knew it would be the perfect family home for us.”

Lee’s Birmingham-based law firm, Christine Lee & Co Solicitors, was registered with Companies House in 1994. Lee and Wilkes are co-owners and she is listed on Companies House as a UK citizen.

His firm’s website states that it “has served the UK community for over 30 years and provides a range of specialist legal services across broad areas of legal work for the benefit of individual and business clients”. A separate profile on a Department of Commerce directory website shows how the law firm advises the Chinese Embassy in London. “We are trusted by official channels as Chinese heritage professionals with strong local knowledge in the UK and China and we provide practical advice and no-nonsense solutions,” the profile says.

Lee has created a group called the British Chinese Project 2006, which describes itself on its Facebook page as “a non-partisan voluntary organization” that “seeks to advance the interests of the British Chinese people through integration, representation, participation and education”. He sponsored the now-dissolved all-party parliamentary group China Britain, acting as its secretariat.

When May was prime minister, she personally praised Lee’s work on Britain’s China Project, in a eulogy that can still be seen online. “You should be very proud of the difference ‘The British Chinese Project’ is making in promoting engagement, understanding and cooperation between the Chinese and British communities in the UK,” May said, adding: “I also wish you good luck with your work to promote the inclusion and participation of the Sino-British people in the British political system.

Analysis by the MPs Register of Financial Interests showed that Lee’s law firm donated over £500,000 to MP Brent North Gardiner between 2015 and 2020, mainly through funding his staff. His son, Daniel Wilkes, was also employed by the MP as his daily secretary until he abruptly resigned on Thursday.

In a statement, Gardiner said he had been “in contact with our security services” for many years about Lee. “They always knew, and I fully informed them, of your involvement with my office and the donations you made to fund researchers in my office in the past,” he said. “Measures have been taken to ensure that Christine Lee has no role to play. in the appointment or management of these researchers. They also know that I have in no way personally benefited from these donations. It stopped funding my office employees in June 2020.”

The former labor minister later added to Sky News that he did not personally benefit from the money, adding that he was “deeply upset” that he had been targeted by Lee. “I don’t feel stupid, but I do feel very angry and very angry that someone tried to use me in this way,” he said.

Asked on Sky News if she had had any conversations about the government’s policy towards China, she replied: “No, not in great detail… I think she must have thought it was a very bad investment if she hoped to get something out of it.” her”. , because I criticized the Chinese government several times.

Meanwhile, Labor said it received some £5,000 from Lee’s company in 2016, while several small donations were made to local Labor branches.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey also received a £5,000 donation from Lee in 2013 when he was energy secretary in the coalition government, but said his local association accepted the money and that would have been correct.

A Lib Dem spokesman said Sir Ed was “shocked by the revelations”, adding: “Today’s Commons chairman’s email was the first time he had been concerned about a donation to his local party association.” ”

In 2014, Lee helped sponsor a Chinese Liberal Democrats dinner in support of the Somerton-Frome party’s then-candidate Sarah Yong. And in 2008 it financed flights for a four-day trip to Beijing for Labor MP for Hendon, Andrew Dismore, who was then chairman of China’s APPG in Britain.

As part of her connection to the UFWD, Lee met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and was filmed shaking hands with him at a conference in 2019. She was photographed just a few positions away in a photo of an official UFWD meeting from 2019 for overseas Chinese. .

The united front system is a network of Chinese state and party agencies tasked with influencing outside groups, according to an analysis by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The institute describes the united front as an export of the Chinese Community Party, saying it “influences politics, harms media integrity, facilitates espionage and increases unsupervised technology transfer.”

Scotland Yard declined to say whether officers are investigating after the MI5 alert. However, there are currently no laws to prosecute for trying to exert influence, such as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in the United States. In March, the government said during the Integrated Defense and Security Review that it would seek to introduce a registration system for foreign agents. the independent contacted Lee for comment.

As the fallout from MI5’s warning mounted on Thursday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said it was “deeply worrying” that an individual “who knowingly engaged in political interference on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party had targeted parliamentarians”. The government was looking at “what other steps, actions and steps we can take, and that’s really important,” he added.

Meanwhile, former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith told the House of Commons: “This is a matter of great concern”, adding: “Why on earth is such an agent allowed in this country? »