Sky News reports UK PM Keir Starmer has been called 'Bejing's useful idiot' by shadow home secretary Priti Patel:

[https://news.sky.com/story/pm-issues-china-warning-and-hits-out-at-brexit-13478096]

While China poses a clear threat to Britain, China continues to back Iran and Russia, and plots to undermine our institutions. Keir Starmer has become Beijing's useful idiot in Britain.

There are lots of people trying to undermine British institutions:

The UK government is undermining free speech, the EU is always trying to undermine Brexit and even the US is starting to dabble in undermining UK institutions like the BBC so China is hardly the only or even the most worrying underminer in the game.

He is still banging on about Brexit:

"How it was sold and delivered was simply wrong," he added. "We are still dealing with the consequences today."

He's right about the delivery but who is responsible for that? The democratic vote made the decision but Parliament failed to deliver. 

The idea that people were 'sold' Brexit is the same nonsense that claims Russia influences elections through a few Facebook ads and online trolling. But politicians have to believe that malign actors used cunning plots to persuade people to make the wrong decision.

Although Sir Keir opposed Brexit when in Opposition, he stressed that the vote to leave "was a fair, democratic expression, and I will always respect that".

But like all remainers, he will continue to do his best to undermine this ghastly expression of democratic will and bring us back into the cosy club of backslapping Brussels bureaucrats, unelected and unaccountable.

Let's face it: Blair would never have been daft enough to hold a referendum.

Let the people decide - I should coco!

Starmer described China as: "a nation of immense scale, ambition, and ingenuity" and a "defining force in technology, trade and global governance".

Just how other nations used to describe Great Britain after the industrial revolution made it a world leader and they came to the UK to learn.

But we don't go to China to learn only to sell 'great British success stories' and lecture them about following the 'rules-based order'.

Something that must be quite laughable to the Chinese who remember what 'gunboat diplomacy' means even if most people in the UK don't. 

So on reflection, useful seems generous. Just who is this guy useful to?