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Johnson sees off Huawei revolt

by on11 March 2020


Gives them fudge, flannel and kippers them

Prime Minister Boris Johnson defeated his first party rebellion over a government decision to allow China’s Huawei to have a role in building Britain’s 5G phone network.

Basically he did it in a typically Boris sort of way by fudging the issue, saying that he would make sure that the UK would work to find a technological way to wean itself off Huawei gear.

However, given that would be unnecessary in the future since the gear would already be installed, and by then the US would have sorted out its trade issues with China, Johnson clearly hopes that the rebels will have forgotten all about it.

Huawei, the world’s biggest producer of telecoms equipment, has been caught in a stand-off between Washington and Beijing after the United States accused it of spying on Western secrets, allegations which it has never provided evidence and the telco outfit has denied.

Britain decided in January to allow Huawei into what the government said were non-sensitive parts of the country’s 5G network, capping its involvement at 35 percent.

This angered the United States, which wants to exclude Huawei from the West’s next-generation communications systems and has been hoping to bully the UK into doing what it is told.

Some senior Conservatives shared the US unhappiness. They wanted Huawei eliminated entirely from Britain’s 5G networks by the end of December 2022.

Digital Infrastructure Minister Matt Warman said the government had “heard loud and clear the points made on all sides of the house”.

Bob Seely, one of the rebels, signalled the group would continue to pursue their cause, describing the vote as “a strong first showing” in a posting on Twitter.

The rebels wanted to amend the Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill to ensure that companies termed by British security experts as “high-risk vendors” - such as Huawei - were stripped out of networks completely by the end of 2022.

The government said it did not want high-risk vendors to have any role, but in a market dominated by three players, Huawei, Sweden’s Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia, most network operators were relying on Huawei.

“We would like to get to the point where we won’t need to have any high risk vendors at all”, digital minister Oliver Dowden told parliament.

Huawei vice president Victor Zhang said the company had been “reassured” by the government’s decision in January, which would “result in a more advanced, more secure and more cost-effective telecoms infrastructure”.

 

Last modified on 11 March 2020
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