The US has warned Britain that allowing Huawei into the 5G rollout could jeopardise its role in the elite Five Eyes intelligence sharing club, comprising the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Loading According to a UK government source, a departmental review recommended Huawei be allowed to supply non-core infrastructure, like antennas, for the country's 5G rollout. The position was backed by four other National Security Council ministers: Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, the de facto Deputy Prime Minister David Lidington, Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright and Greg Clark, with whom the Prime Minister sided. 5G is the latest generation of phone network, which will provide for faster download speeds and connections between devices and the internet.

Junior digital minister Margot James said the Prime Minister had acted on advice from the National Cyber Security Centre which sits within GCHQ, the government's digital surveillance organisation. Loading "The National Cyber Security Centre is respected the world over, their advice is that we can manage/minimise any risk Huawei might pose to telecoms infrastructure and Theresa May is absolutely right to act on that advice," she tweeted. While the National Security Council's decision is considered to be one taken collectively, confirmation that the bulk of ministers, several of whom are vying to replace May, opposed any Huawei involvement underlines the strength of concern within the cabinet. One government source predicted to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that the matter was far from over, despite Tuesday's decision.

Senior Tory MPs were appalled and led a fierce backlash. Prominent MP George Freeman said May should have listened to Malcolm Turnbull's warning given in London only last month. "Only a few weeks ago the excellent Malcolm Turnbull, former prime minister of Australia, was here warning against this very decision," he said. Loading He later tweeted: "I fear this may prove to be a bad decision, with major strategic data security & contract issues". Speaking to The Herald and The Age, Freeman said cyber security must be a "major pillar of national security."

"Would we let China or Russia supply our warships? No. We have to ask the same question about our digital operating systems, and be sure that we are secure. Future generations will not thank us for not asking the question," he said. The chair of the Commons Foreign Select Committee, Tom Tugendhat, who has previously raised concerns, said the decision would cause the UK's allies to "doubt our ability to keep data secure and erode the trust essential to Five Eyes cooperation". Loading "The definition of core and non-core is a very difficult one with 5G," he said. "It really does change from a faster internet system into an internet system that can genuinely connect everything and therefore the distinction between non-core and core is much harder to make.

"And that's why in the conversations I've had with our various Five Eyes partners, this is a concern that's been raised extremely clearly to me." Huawei says it does not spy on behalf of Beijing but Tugendhat said the Chinese company would always be bound to follow the law of the Chinese state, which could order it to supply data. "This does mean that it is unwise to cooperate on an area of critical national infrastructure like telecoms with a state that can be best described as not always friendly," he told the BBC's Radio 4 Today program. Julian Lewis, a Tory MP and member of the joint committee on the National Security Strategy questioned de facto Deputy Prime Minister Lidington who was standing in for Theresa May about the decision in Prime Minister's Questions. "Does the government accept that the telecommunications firm Huawei is intimately linked with the Chinese Communist government and its deeply hostile intelligence services?" Dr Lewis said.