Last week's Poll: Huawei’s UK 5G involvement

The controversy and kerfuffle surrounding Huawei shows little sign of abating, with its CFO battling extradition to the US, which is urging the UK to reject the company’s 5G technology.

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer, faces charges that include alleged violation of sanctions against Iran. A Canadian court will decide if she’s extradited to the US, which has raised concerns about Chinese intelligence services using Huawei’s 5G technology as a so-called ‘back door’ to conduct operations in cyberspace.

UK intelligence services have advised the government that the firm’s involvement in “non-core” elements of the system would not present a security risk. This isn’t the view of Matt Pottinger, Donald Trump’s deputy national security, who is widely reported as saying it would be ‘nothing short of madness’ to use Huawei’s technology in the UK’s 5G network.

All of this prompted us to ask if Huawei should be excluded from providing 5G technology to the UK, and 58 per cent of the 574 respondents agreed that it should. Two poll responses were offered as options, and the remaining 42 per cent saw no issue with Huawei’s 5G involvement in Britain.