Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch denies hypocrisy over her “concerns” in the building of a Chinese mega-embassy in the City of London, after the project was greenlighted by a former Tory government, saying “a lot has changed since then”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
00:00I don't trust the government. I would like to hear very clearly exactly why it is safe to have this mega embassy with all of the concerns that have been raised, with all of the concerns that we do have with China, whether it's spying, disrupting a lot of our services, issues with trade, the harassment of British nationals with connections to China, the harassment of the people of Hong Kong.
00:21There is so much that we're concerned about. And when we look at what's happening around the world, we need a government that's going to be acting in our national interest.
00:30But it was Boris Johnson as foreign secretary under a Tory government that first gained the green light to this, which led the Chinese to buy the site in the first place. It's a bit hypocritical to oppose it now, isn't it?
00:39A lot has changed since then. Look at the world. You look at what's happening with Russia's war in Ukraine. You look at what's happening in Venezuela. It is becoming an increasingly dangerous world. And what we see is an axis of authoritarian states, Russia, Iran, China, they're collaborating. They're working together against the British national interest.
00:57What I want to see is a prime minister with a backbone who can stand toe to toe with the Chinese leader and say, no, we're not going to have this until you explain what's happening with the spying, until you explain what's happening with trade disruption, undercutting British businesses.
01:12There's so much that's going wrong. And that's what I want to see from our prime minister.
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