UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat Warns ‘Democracy Under Attack’ After MPs’ Phones Warning

Tom Tugendhat during the Conservative Party annual conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, England, on Oct. 3, 2022. Jacob King/PA Media

Security minister Tom Tugendhat has warned that democracy is “under attack” by hostile states—thought to be Russia, Iran, and China—after MPs were warned by the speaker of the House of Commons their mobile phones were a “potential goldmine for hostile states.”

Tugendhat’s remarks follow advice given to MPs by the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, which emanated from the government’s National Cyber Security Centre.

Hoyle wrote to MPs, after revelations that former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s personal phone had been hacked by Russia when she was foreign secretary, and said: “As recent events have highlighted, hostile states continue to target Parliamentarians to gain insight into, or exert influence over, our democratic processes for their economic, military or political advantage.”

He added: “Our phones contain so much information: our messages, emails, contacts, photos and social media posts — including private, sensitive, personal, historic and sometimes even deleted data.”

The letter went on: “They go almost everywhere with us, and have cameras and sensitive microphones built in, making them a potential goldmine for hostile states (as well as criminals and fraudsters) who wish to obtain sensitive information about Parliament and parliamentarians.”

Tugendhat, who is leading a special taskforce addressing threats to Britain’s democratic institutions, said, “our democracy is under attack,” and commended the speaker for warning MPs.

Tugendhat Banned From Driving for Using Phone

Ironically Tugendhat was banned from driving on Thursday after he admitted using his mobile phone while driving in Wandsworth, south London, in April this year.

The Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling in Kent admitted the phone had been in his left hand as he drove and said he was checking maps on it, rather than making a call on it.

He got six points on his driving licence for the offence which, added to the six he already had, meant he was automatically banned for six months.

Judge Jack McGarva said using a mobile phone was a distraction that impairs motorists’ ability to drive and he told Tugendhat, “I would expect you to set a good example for the rest of us.”

Tugendhat, a former lieutenant colonel in Britain’s Territorial Army, launched a bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party this summer after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigned, but bowed out long before Truss won the contest.

Truss appointed him security minister in September, a position he retained when Rishi Sunak replaced her in 10 Downing Street.

As chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tugendhat is considered by some to be a China hawk in the House of Commons.

In April 2020, he founded the China Research Group of Conservative MPs alongside fellow Conservative MP Neil O’Brien. The group has called for a more critical foreign policy from the British government towards the Chinese Communist Party and has been critical of Huawei’s role in the UK’s 5G network, the Chinese regime’s COVID-19 disinformation campaign, its human rights abuses, and its foreign policy.

In March 2021, Tugendhat was among five Conservative MPs to be sanctioned by the Chinese regime for their vocal opposition to the human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, northwest China.