'Pull the other one!' Labour minister faces brutal GB News grilling after Keir Starmer comments

The Prime Minister confirmed on Wednesday that the Government will publish the witness statements "in full" submitted to the Chinese espionage trial.

Announcing his decision, Sir Keir told MPs during Prime Minister's questions: "After legal advice, I have decided to publish the witness statements.

"Given the information contained, we will conduct a short process, but I want to make clear I intend to publish the witness statements in full."

Praising the Government's handling of the case, Mr Kinnock told GB News: "There are Government processes and protocols around this, and of course, we have to be very careful about the information that gets released, because that can end up compromising our national security, which would obviously not be the right thing to do.

"The Government and the Prime Minister have shown huge amounts of transparency by publishing these three witness statements.

"And what I think they clearly show is the position of the Government, indeed, from the Conservative to Labour transition, the broad position has remained the same, which is that you can't boil the relationship with China down to one word of it being an enemy."

Discussing Britain's relationship with China, the Labour minister added: "You have to see it in the round in terms of all of the important cooperation we need to have with them on vital issues like climate change, competing on things like technology and foreign direct investment.

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"But also, of course, being very clear-eyed and robust and strong when it comes to protecting our national security and promoting our national interest."

Responding to Mr Kinnock's remarks, host Stephen Dixon questioned him on a meeting involving Jonathan Powell, where the Prime Minister claimed the meeting "did not involve discussing any evidence or the other one".

As Stephen told the Labour minister to "pull the other one", Mr Kinnock responded: "Well, the first thing to say is the final submissions in terms of evidence were in August 2024 and this meeting apparently took place in September 2024, so the meeting has no relevance to the evidence that was submitted to the CPS, because it took place after the final evidence was submitted.

"In terms of the role of the Deputy National Security Adviser and of the National Security Advisor, as the Prime Minister made very clear in Prime Minister's questions yesterday, no ministers or special advisers were involved in the submission of evidence. Only evidence that was submitted was by the Deputy National Security Advisor."

Interjecting Mr Kinnock, cohost Ellie Costello asked: "Are we really meant to believe that?

"The deputy national security adviser never discussed anything with the Home Secretary or anyone in Downing Street, we are truly meant to believe that?"

Hitting back at Ellie, the Labour minister reiterated: "The Prime Minister made that crystal clear yesterday, no ministers or special advisers were involved in the submission or provision of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service.

"The legal basis then was an antiquated piece of legislation, the Official Secrets Act.

"Sadly, it took the previous Conservative Government eight years to update that act.

"I don't know what they were doing in that time, maybe they were dealing with Partygate, botching Brexit or crashing the economy with Liz Truss's mini budget.

"I don't know, they were clearly distracted, but as a result, the Crown Prosecution Service felt that the prosecutions couldn't go ahead."