British Prime Minister Johnson faces lawmaker revolt over Huawei 5G decision

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government faces its first revolt over a decision to allow the Chinese telecom giant Huawei to build the country's 5G phone network.

Huawei, the world's biggest producer of telecoms equipment, has been at loggerheads with Washington which accuses it of spying for the Chinese government.

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The company denies those allegations and Britain decided in January to allow Huawei into what Johnson's government said were non-sensitive parts of the British network, capping its involvement at 35%.

The decision angered the United States. Now, a group of Johnson's Conservatives, which the rebels say number anything from 30 to 50 lawmakers, oppose the decision. Some of them plan to back an amendment to the Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill to ensure that the companies termed by British security experts as "high-risk vendors" - such as Huawei - are stripped out of networks completely by the end of 2022, reported news agency Reuters.

"We hope to curb the government's enthusiasm for installing hardware produced by a company that they acknowledge to be 'high risk',"

Conservative lawmaker David Jones told Reuters.

The Conservative rebels acknowledge that they do not have the numbers to force a change to government policy. But they hope to fire a sizeable warning shot across the newly installed government's bows and influence Johnson to take a harder line, the report added.

(With inputs from Reuters)