Maurisa Coleman is a British–Trinidadian entrepreneur, who has worked as a Parliamentary researcher. She is also an ambassador for the Notting Hill Carnival.
The government’s handling of China’s proposed new “mega-embassy” in London has revealed a familiar but increasingly dangerous habit in British politics: hiding behind process in order to avoid responsibility.
During the recent debate in the House of Commons, ministers repeatedly brushed aside concerns about national security by insisting that the matter was “a planning decision”. National security, MPs were told, would be “taken into account”. Concerns were “noted”. The same phrases were repeated again and again. This response is not reassuring. It is evasive, and everyone in the chamber knows it.
The proposed development at Royal Mint Court would become the largest Chinese embassy in Europe. That fact alone should make clear that this is not an ordinary application for offices or housing. An embassy is not simply a building; it is an extension of a foreign state. Once consent is granted, the UK loses the ability to routinely inspect, regulate or enforce compliance within the site, above or below ground. Embassy premises are inviolable under international law, leaving only blunt diplomatic remedies rather than normal regulatory control. That reality elevates the decision beyond local planning and squarely into the realm of national strategy. To treat it otherwise is a category error.
Context matters, and the timing could hardly be worse. The debate follows serious allegations of Chinese espionage linked to Parliament itself, alongside repeated public warnings from the security services about sustained hostile activity by the Chinese state. Successive UK security reviews do not treat China as a neutral partner, but as a systemic challenge to British interests and values, even while acknowledging the need for selective engagement. In that environment, approving a vast diplomatic complex in the heart of London is not a technocratic exercise but a geopolitical signal.
It is increasingly clear that the question of approval has become entangled with the government’s wider desire for renewed engagement with Beijing. When diplomatic access appears to depend on resolving “outstanding issues” such as this embassy, the distinction between planning and politics collapses. A decision that shapes the tone and substance of bilateral relations cannot credibly be presented as a narrow administrative matter.
Conservatives have been here before. The decision to remove Huawei from the UK’s critical infrastructure followed sustained campaigning by security-minded Conservative backbenchers such as Bob Seely and Iain Duncan Smith, who carried deep expertise in the field and warned—correctly—that China does not separate commerce, infrastructure and state power. While ministers initially favoured engagement, the party ultimately acted on that expert intuition.
It is right to acknowledge that the planning process for the proposed embassy began under a Conservative government. But Conservatives have also demonstrated that they are willing to take the challenge posed by China seriously when circumstances change. The decision to remove Huawei showed that, when new evidence emerged, expert warnings were listened to and course was corrected. After the recent espionage revelations linked to Parliament, and particularly following investigative reporting into the scale and underground features of the proposed embassy, the government should have reassessed its approach with the same seriousness. Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservative Party is clear that inherited process is not an excuse for inaction, and that decisions of this magnitude require political judgment, not procedural deflection.
Engagement with China requires clarity and restraint, not evasiveness. A government that blurs the line between security judgment and diplomatic convenience risks signalling weakness, not pragmatism, both to Beijing and to Britain’s allies. National security decisions should be made openly, politically and honestly. They should not be laundered through planning processes in the hope that no one notices the implications.
This is not about opposing China for its own sake.
It is about recognising that decisions of this scale and sensitivity are irreversible once taken. Embassy approvals create permanent diplomatic facts on the ground, with consequences that cannot be quietly unwound if judgments prove mistaken. Treating such choices as routine planning matters is therefore not procedural caution but strategic abdication. If Britain cannot bring itself to confront that reality openly, then the problem is no longer planning. It is leadership.
Maurisa Coleman is a British–Trinidadian entrepreneur, who has worked as a Parliamentary researcher. She is also an ambassador for the Notting Hill Carnival.
The government’s handling of China’s proposed new “mega-embassy” in London has revealed a familiar but increasingly dangerous habit in British politics: hiding behind process in order to avoid responsibility.
During the recent debate in the House of Commons, ministers repeatedly brushed aside concerns about national security by insisting that the matter was “a planning decision”. National security, MPs were told, would be “taken into account”. Concerns were “noted”. The same phrases were repeated again and again. This response is not reassuring. It is evasive, and everyone in the chamber knows it.
The proposed development at Royal Mint Court would become the largest Chinese embassy in Europe. That fact alone should make clear that this is not an ordinary application for offices or housing. An embassy is not simply a building; it is an extension of a foreign state. Once consent is granted, the UK loses the ability to routinely inspect, regulate or enforce compliance within the site, above or below ground. Embassy premises are inviolable under international law, leaving only blunt diplomatic remedies rather than normal regulatory control. That reality elevates the decision beyond local planning and squarely into the realm of national strategy. To treat it otherwise is a category error.
Context matters, and the timing could hardly be worse. The debate follows serious allegations of Chinese espionage linked to Parliament itself, alongside repeated public warnings from the security services about sustained hostile activity by the Chinese state. Successive UK security reviews do not treat China as a neutral partner, but as a systemic challenge to British interests and values, even while acknowledging the need for selective engagement. In that environment, approving a vast diplomatic complex in the heart of London is not a technocratic exercise but a geopolitical signal.
It is increasingly clear that the question of approval has become entangled with the government’s wider desire for renewed engagement with Beijing. When diplomatic access appears to depend on resolving “outstanding issues” such as this embassy, the distinction between planning and politics collapses. A decision that shapes the tone and substance of bilateral relations cannot credibly be presented as a narrow administrative matter.
Conservatives have been here before. The decision to remove Huawei from the UK’s critical infrastructure followed sustained campaigning by security-minded Conservative backbenchers such as Bob Seely and Iain Duncan Smith, who carried deep expertise in the field and warned—correctly—that China does not separate commerce, infrastructure and state power. While ministers initially favoured engagement, the party ultimately acted on that expert intuition.
It is right to acknowledge that the planning process for the proposed embassy began under a Conservative government. But Conservatives have also demonstrated that they are willing to take the challenge posed by China seriously when circumstances change. The decision to remove Huawei showed that, when new evidence emerged, expert warnings were listened to and course was corrected. After the recent espionage revelations linked to Parliament, and particularly following investigative reporting into the scale and underground features of the proposed embassy, the government should have reassessed its approach with the same seriousness. Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservative Party is clear that inherited process is not an excuse for inaction, and that decisions of this magnitude require political judgment, not procedural deflection.
Engagement with China requires clarity and restraint, not evasiveness. A government that blurs the line between security judgment and diplomatic convenience risks signalling weakness, not pragmatism, both to Beijing and to Britain’s allies. National security decisions should be made openly, politically and honestly. They should not be laundered through planning processes in the hope that no one notices the implications.
This is not about opposing China for its own sake.
It is about recognising that decisions of this scale and sensitivity are irreversible once taken. Embassy approvals create permanent diplomatic facts on the ground, with consequences that cannot be quietly unwound if judgments prove mistaken. Treating such choices as routine planning matters is therefore not procedural caution but strategic abdication. If Britain cannot bring itself to confront that reality openly, then the problem is no longer planning. It is leadership.