Why did May really sack Gavin Williamson? His Huawei leak stopped her cosying up to Trump

A US trade deal is the prize many Brexiters believe Britain’s exit from the EU will deliver. The scandal involving the defence secretary may have scuppered that plan

The only thing faster than Gavin Williamson’s meteoric political rise has been his dramatic fall from grace, fired by Theresa May both for leaking the National Security Council decision to permit Chinese tech giant Huawei to supply 5G infrastructure, and for his conduct during the investigation that followed. But this affair has prompted many commentators to ask whether the leaking of a decision on a major public infrastructure investment programme was such a serious offence. Why was May so furious?

Part of the explanation is an old-fashioned defence of principle: as Attlee had said in 1945, “no government can be successful which cannot keep its secrets” and the prime minister was surely keen to avert a precedent that National Security Council discussions were fair game for the rough and tumble of politics.

As former cabinet secretary Gus O’Donnell says he used to tell ministers: it is essential that politics are left outside the meeting room door. Williamson’s actions were plainly aimed at advancing his leadership ambitions, putting his self-interest above the national interest.

But the Huawei question can only be properly understood through the prism of Britain’s special relationship with the United States. With Britain’s relative decline as a military power – a single US carrier group has more firepower than the entire Royal Navy – the cornerstone of the special relationship is intelligence sharing.

The concerns around Huawei get to the heart of the security relationship. The argument is that since Huawei is ultimately owned by the Chinese state, that there may be “backdoors” built into its technology, allowing the Chinese security services to spy on the west or even to disrupt western networks in a confrontation.

For decades, British politicians have been desperate to maintain the idea of a relationship of equals, self-defining as the Americans’ most important ally. The vote to leave the European Union has amplified concerns about the special relationship with the US for many reasons. First, Brexit diminishes Britain’s role in the world, and the relationship with the US is seen by many as the last route for British influence in world affairs. Second, for many prominent Brexiters, a US trade deal is the prize that they believe Britain’s exit from the EU will deliver. That is why May has repeatedly pandered to Donald Trump and why the US president is set for a state visit later this year.

Under Trump, the US has adopted an “America First” trade policy, initiating a trade war with China. As part of this, the Trump administration has pressured its allies to reject Huawei on security grounds and to buy American instead – heralding a new mercantilist era in US trade policy.

As far as we know, there has never been any evidence to back up the thesis that Huawei is deliberately assisting the Chinese state’s intelligence activities, leading the head of GCHQ to conclude that the UK government could work with the firm so long as we remain vigilant. So this is really an economic argument dressed up as a national security concern.

Just like on Brexit, May’s approach to Huawei and its implications for the relationship with the US has been to be secretive, controlling and clumsy. It appears that the plan was to make the decision on Huawei in secret at the National Security Council and only inform the Americans once the 2020 presidential campaign was in full swing.

My sources say the hope was that by then, Trump would be so distracted by domestic politics that it would not do any serious damage to the relationship with the UK or put at risk a future trade deal. Williamson’s decision scuppered that strategy altogether, opening a major rift with the US.

The Huawei/Williamson scandal raises broader questions for the UK. It is a sorry reflection of the decline of political standards to have the defence secretary fired for a national security leak. It is a sharp reminder of the wider implications of Britain’s 40-year failure in industrial policy – after the fall of UK telecoms firm GEC Marconi, the UK would have to subsequently adopt foreign-manufactured technology. And it shows how potentially isolated the UK may find itself if it pursues a permanent split from our European friends and neighbours. It’s not just May and Williamson who come out poorly from this affair – but the wider failure of British government policy for a generation.

Tom Kibasi is Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and founder of the Centre for Economic Justice