MI5 kept a file on former Cabinet minister Louise Haigh because of fears about her relationship with a nationalist politician, security sources have told The Mail on Sunday.
The concerns – which arose from the fact that Ms Haigh was receiving low-level intelligence briefings in her role as Labour’s Northern Ireland spokesman – are understood to have played a role in her downfall last month over a historic fraud case involving a lost mobile phone.
Sources said MI5 had raised issues of conflict of interest over her close relationship with the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood.
Mr Eastwood stepped down as the party’s leader in October, but remains the MP for Foyle.
There is no suggestion that Ms Haigh shared any sensitive information with Mr Eastwood or that they behaved inappropriately in any way, but sources said the briefing prompted Sir Keir Starmer to move Ms Haigh to the transport department in 2021.
Ms Haigh received a fraud conviction after saying that she had been mugged during a ‘terrifying’ night out in 2013 and giving police a list of items missing from her handbag.
She included in that list her work mobile phone, but discovered ‘some time later’ it had not been stolen. Ms Haigh pleaded guilty to an offence in connection with misleading the police.
Although she had declared the conviction to Sir Keir in 2020 when he appointed her to the Northern Ireland post, the Prime Minister and his advisers were reluctant to spend political capital to defend her after the media became aware of the conviction this year – with the MI5 briefing uppermost in their minds.
MI5 had raised issues of conflict of interest over former Cabinet minister Liz Haigh’s close relationship with the SDLP’s Colum Eastwood
The concerns arose from the fact that Ms Haigh was receiving low-level intelligence briefings in her role as Labour ‘s Northern Ireland spokesman
Sources said the briefing prompted Sir Keir Starmer to move Ms Haigh to the transport department in 2021. Pictured: The pair at Stormont prior to her role change
Ms Haigh agreed to leave the Cabinet during the phone furore as she did not want to become ‘a distraction’.
In October, she also irritated No10 by branding Saudi-owned ferry company P&O ‘rogue operators’ following the firm’s sacking of 800 British workers.
A source said: ‘There had been question marks over her judgment since MI5’s intervention, and P&O and then the phone saga highlighted these.’
Ms Haigh also lost the protection of her friend Sue Gray, who quit as No10 Chief of Staff in October after a bitter power struggle with Sir Keir’s closest adviser Morgan McSweeney.
Ms Gray, who the Prime Minister has nominated for a peerage, is herself steeped in Northern Irish politics.
Shortly before her resignation, the Mail on Sunday raised questions surrounding her connections with nationalist politicians, including former IRA member Conor Murphy who boasted Ms Gray as a ‘friend in court’ who could give ‘access…directly to Downing Street.’
Security sources said Ms Gray held meetings with Mr Murphy, Sinn Fein’s economy minister, when she quit her senior civil service job to work for Sir Keir.
Ms Gray’s connections with Irish republicans have stirred up intrigue since her days as a pub landlady in IRA ‘bandit country’ in the 1980s.
Last night, a No10 source said: ‘Louise decided to resign because of the reasons she set out. Nothing more nothing less.’
Ms Haigh resigned from her role, having lost the protection of her friend Sue Gray, who quit as No10 Chief of Staff in October
