Why Huawei may be allowed in the UK 5G network

Brandon Lewis, the security minister, is something of a genius at winsomely saying next to nothing. Even so I emerged from my interview with him on my show last night persuaded that the National Security Council and the Prime Minister would next week give the go ahead to the controversial use of Huawei kit in the roll-out of superfast 5G mobile broadband.

It was something about the way he said that he utterly respected the advice of the security services and would take very seriously the evidence provided by BT and Vodafone.

Here is why this matters.

The security services, I understand, have concluded that GCHQ and the National Cyber Security Centre have the relevant expertise and the capacity to make sure that Chinese agents provocateurs do not in any way undermine the security of the UK, if it were to turn out that use of the Chinese kit somehow gives them a backdoor either to eavesdrop or somehow to control a vital part of UK communications infrastructure.