So farewell Huawei. Boris has finally done it.

It has taken months of haranguing by everyone in the White House for Boris Johnson to finally give in and announce one of his most spectacular U-turns. Instead of allowing the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to grab 35 per cent of our 5G digital requirements, the prime minister has decided after all that that's not a good idea and has reversed his decision. Now Huawei is to be stripped out of everything by 2027 and the previous plan to let them 5G us has been scrapped. It's going to cost a fortune to do that and will mean a delay of a year or so before we can catch up with the leading high-tech countries. Boris's famous pledge to bring superfast broadband to every crevice in the UK, including the remotest Welsh farm, ain't going to happen. AND, the Chinese Communist government will be so angry at the disrespect shown by the Brits that Beijing will no doubt take its revenge in one form or another. Trade between the two countries will suffer and former Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's dream of a new golden era of trade relations between the UK and China has been splattered. I guess Boris had little alternative. When Trump banned US companies from providing any of the components for Huawei's 5G systems, that effectively scuppered the Chinese company's ambition to spread its 5G around the world. GCHQ, the UK government's signals intelligence centre, had previously said that the government could work round the Huawei components to prevent China from gaining access to secret technology, presumably on the basis that the American bits in Huawei would provide sufficient protection. But with an all-Chinese 5G and no US involvement that assurance could no longer be given. Boris was cul-de-sacced. Trump wins. He had sent every type of expert to London to bash Boris's ears about the dangers of nasty Chinese spies gaining access to the UK's secrets and thus American secrets through the Five Eyes intelligence club of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Boris, and Theresa May before him, felt sure that the Five Eyes family would not be affected by China's 5G and that the clever GCHQ could keep all the really secret stuff away from Chinese prying eyes. Huawei of course has always said it is just a business company and has nothing to do with the Beijing government. Everyone, especially the board of Huawei which includes British toffs in the UK, knows that to be untrue. Every aspect of Chinese business, and in particular those companies that trade internationally and especially especially those in the communications technology world, is subject to the whims and wishes of the Communist Party and its intelligence apparatus. If Huawei is ordered to use its 5G networks to spy on the West that is what the company has to do. It's the law. So Boris's decision today to do a U-turn is right. But why on earth did we say yes initially and infuriate our American partners in the process? And why was GCHQ so confident that we could have Chinese 5G flooding our communications networks and not risk being spied on? China is increasingly our adversary. It was ALWAYS going to be too risky to have Huawei's 5G. But now we will have to put up with falling behind in the superfast technology world and go for an American/British option which isn't nearly as good or as cheap as China's 5G. What the hell is wrong with the western versions? Why are they second-best and so slow? In the end, China will have the last laugh because the Communist Party will be super super high tech before everyone else. But Trump has played his key card by banning US companies from partnering with Huawei, so Beijing will also have some catching up to do, producing Chinese components to replace the American ones. It's a 5G war.