Caller confronts Nigel Farage over his objection to Huawei decision
28 January 2020, 20:01 | Updated: 28 January 2020, 20:53
"The country needs another foreign enemy to pick on and Huawei is what happens to be around," said this caller, confronting Nigel Farage over his objection to Boris Johnson allowing the company to help build the UK 5G network.
The UK decided today to give the company a limited role in the construction, despite concerns of national security from the US.
Brian insisted that the UK needs to calm down over national security concerns as we have no evidence the Chinese company could hack and leak data to the Chinese authorities.
"Now we've done our Brexit this is the latest bit of jingoism that everybody wants to get involved in," he said.
"I work around telecomms and can basically tell you the core network is the bit that processes data. They're not involved in the core network. So it's the same as putting a telephone system in your office and they were providing the wiring. Nobody would be upset about that and suggesting that a piece of copper wire could be tapped."
Brian said, "The country needs another foreign enemy to pick on and this is what happens to be around at the time."
"In the world in which we now inhabit, thanks to your efforts, we are no longer tied down to our nearest neighbours, then having those sorts of commercial relationships some of the largest economies in the world - that's what this whole thing's about isn't it?" asked Brian.
Nigel conceded that his point was very good however refusals from the US and Australia to ban China from access to their cyber infrastructure should be taken into account.
"We respect the fact that Australia have made their decision, but we are a sovereign nation with our own good patriotic experts in the security services," Brian said, "so I'm not sure why we wouldn't trust ourselves."
He said the fact these countries feel like that about China should be recognised but "I don't think anybody has presented any evidence that there is a risk. There is only a feeling.
"If you start to run major procurements and governments based on feelings rather than evidence then you're heading for a very dark place."
