Senior Tory revealed as Huawei cheerleader in Brussels - Open Democracy

May 02, 2019 at 09:55PM

Deva's intervention comes as Huawei steps up its Brussels lobbying efforts, amid a growing backlash against its activities in Europe.

"Huawei people having been turning up in MEPs' offices uninvited, handing out cards and invitations," said a staffer for a UK MEP in Brussels. "It's full on lobbying with no record of it."

Huawei lobbyists include Dick Roche, Dick Roche, an Irish former environment minister, whose company The Skill Set earned upwards of €100,000 from the company in 2016. Huawei employs nine full-time EU lobbyists who have held 41 meetings with senior European Commission officials since 2015, according to EU data.

A spokeswoman for Huawei denied that the company had been calling into MEPs' offices uninvited and said that Huawei follows "all the procedures and guidance, the same as other companies."

As well as speaking up for Huawei – it has "created 10,000 direct jobs and 30,000 indirect jobs in the EU in the past year", according to the leaked email – Deva is a vocal defender of Chinese foreign policy.

"Recently it has become fashionable in Washington to cry wolf and ring alarm bells about China's colonial ambitions," he told the Chinese news agency Xinhua in January. "Frankly, I laugh at this."

While there is no suggestion Deva has taken payment from Huawei or the Chinese state to lobby for the company, he has previously attracted criticism over his business activities.

As well as serving as an MEP, he is an unpaid adviser to the prime minister of Sri Lanka, where he was born and where he holds directorships at some of the country's biggest companies, including an airline and a distillery.

In 2009, he used an expenses-paid trip to Barbados to lobby for a plastic bag company where he was a director. Deva and the company, Symphony Environmental Technologies, were in 2014 accused by a fellow MEP of exploiting their links to the British Conservative party to block a proposed EU ban on plastic bags.

Early in his career, during his unsuccessful campaign for a UK parliamentary seat in the 1987 general election, Deva was one of 23 MPs identified as recipients of cash payments from Ian Greer, a lobbyist at the centre of the "cash for questions" scandal. An inquiry later found that he had no case to answer.

More recently, Deva, who narrowly escaped a recent bomb attack while on a visit to Sri Lanka, has drawn attention as the president of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute. Run by his former research assistant, Benjamin Harnwell, it is working with Donald Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, to establish a "gladiator school" for future far-right leaders in a monastery outside Rome.

Deva was invited to a meeting at the White House in 2017 during Bannon's time there, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified. Among the topics the pair discussed was North Korea. Deva has said that the EU should play a greater role in "de-escalating tensions" in the Korean peninsula.

While Harnwell was helpful in arranging the meeting, it was conducted through "formal channels," he said.

Deva recently announced that he would stand for a fifth term in the European parliament if the UK holds elections on May 23. "Rather than "cut and run" in the face of political adversity, like a coward, I intend to stand my ground," the South East England MEP wrote in a letter to constituents.

"A collapse in the Conservative vote at the Euro election would propel Jeremy Corbyn into office. Our party might never recover. We would have opened the door to a Marxist-Leninist Labour Party that would ruin Britain like a locust swarm."