An MP whose husband faces claims of spying for China has been involved in separate incidents of inappropriate behaviour with two senior naval officers working on Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
The Times understands that Joani Reid left the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme (AFPS) last year after getting “carried away” during a visit to the Faslane naval base in Scotland, home to the UK’s nuclear submarines.
She was alleged to have behaved inappropriately with a senior naval officer during drinks at the officers’ mess. The incident is said to have led to her leaving the scheme prematurely early last year.
Reid left the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme after the alleged incident
It also led to Reid being reported to the parliamentary authorities by an MP, who was also on the visit, after her husband, David Taylor, was arrested on suspicion of spying for China. He denies the allegations.
The MP who reported Reid said that they took the decision out of fear that information about Britain’s sensitive nuclear deterrent could inadvertently have ended up in enemy hands. However, one senior figure said that they were satisfied there was “no link” at all to the China spy case.
The incident was also reported to the parliamentary authorities by the military before Taylor’s arrest.
Separately, the captain of one of the Royal Navy’s nuclear-armed submarines stepped back from his duties this week after another investigation into an alleged relationship with Reid. The navy opened the investigation last year in response to allegations that the officer, who is married, had conducted an inappropriate relationship with Reid.
The Financial Times reported that the original investigation had found that the captain and Reid had exchanged flirtatious messages and action was taken to mitigate the risk of blackmail. The captain was found not to have broken any military rules and was not disciplined, but stepped back this week for “personal reasons”. He has not left the navy.
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More security checks were carried out this month after Taylor’s arrest. The Ministry of Defence was said to have been satisfied by these checks and does not believe there was a security breach.
The officer and Reid first met as young adults, the Financial Times reported. Reid’s constituency is about 50km from Faslane.
In the first incident, Reid was alleged to have behaved inappropriately with a senior naval officer working on one of Britain’s nuclear submarines.
Sources told The Times that she met the naval officer last year when she and other MPs on the scheme were taken to Faslane for a two-day visit organised by the AFPS. The group are understood to have stayed at the base and had drinks in the officers’ mess. One MP said: “She behaved very inappropriately, and then carried on after the drinks.”
Another said that Reid had been “extremely drunk” and “all over” the officer. They added that at one stage a female officer involved in organising the trip asked her to go to bed and had been sworn at by Reid.
The Times was told that Reid’s alleged behaviour had been brought to the attention of the Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a trustee of the AFPS. His office is said to have raised concerns with officials who run the scheme who confirmed that Reid had left the programme of her own accord.
Reid, centre, on a 2024 AFPS visit to the UK Defence Academy in Shrivenham@AlanStrickland/X
Labour whips were also made aware of the incident.
A source close to Reid said claims she had been reported because of national security concerns were “opportunistic hypocrisy, as shown by the nearly a year gap between the events and the report”. They said: “Many of the male MPs attending had plenty to drink too but only the woman is reported. Not hard to see what the real force behind this is.”
They added that any suggestion Reid had any relationship with the submariner was nonsense. “They have never spoken since and Joani doesn’t even know his name,” they said.
The Royal Navy told the FT: “The security of the nuclear deterrent is our highest priority, and we have robust processes in place to protect the security of our people and capabilities. We will not comment on individual cases.”
Reid’s spokesperson declined to comment. Reid, who was elected as Labour MP for East Kilbride & Strathaven at the last election, resigned the Labour whip last month after her husband was arrested. She said after his arrest that she had never seen anything to make her suspect that her husband had “broken any law”. She added that she had never been to China or spoken on any China-related matters in the House of Commons.
She added that she was a social democrat who believed in “freedom of expression, free trade unions and free elections” and not any sort of “admirer or apologist for the Chinese Communist Party’s dictatorship”.