Prince Andrew faces intense scrutiny over links to an alleged Chinese spy MI5 has banished from Britain.

The Far East agent was apparently so close to the Royal Family he was invited to the Duke of York’s birthday party. Yet he has now been banned from the UK ‘on security grounds’.

An adviser to Andrew is said to have bragged to the alleged Chinese spy: ‘You sit at the top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.’

The alleged spook became so close to the British Establishment he was authorised to act on the duke’s behalf to seek investors in China, a secret hearing has been told.

It is the latest humiliation for Prince Andrew who is already a royal pariah after being forced to step back from palace duties following the Jeffrey Epstein paedophile scandal.

Andrew, a former UK trade envoy, has long courted influential businessmen. But when it came to the Chinese man, MI5 allegedly discovered the 50-year-old businessman was a member of the Chinese Communist Party and was working for its United Front Work Department, which gathers intelligence. 

In an extraordinary legal case that has been held largely behind closed doors, the Chinese businessman has now been exposed as an alleged Chinese spy. 

The alleged spy was been banned from entering the UK, a decision upheld by immigration judges, and, after appealing to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, he has lost, and their decision has tonight been made public.

During the legal proceedings, now made public, judges were told that data from the alleged spy’s phone showed how Prince Andrew was involved.

A hearing was told that the contents of the businessman’s mobile telephone were downloaded, when he was stopped under counterterrorism laws at a UK border in 2021. 

The mobile’s contents revealed the Duke of York had authorised the man to set up an international financial initiative known as the Eurasia Fund to engage with potential partners and investors in China.