EXCLUSIVE: UK's £800m+ "slave labour" imports from Xinjiang revealed Vast numbers of products flown into Britain from Uyghur region of China - revealed for first time by my @The i Paper investigation @Stop Uyghur Genocide calls it a "national disgrace" 1 https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-800m-slave-labour-china-imports-bras-lawnmowers-3871242…

Imports in last 12 months included 2 million T-shirts, 243,00 bras, 170,000 toothbrushes, 30,000 hair dryers and 15,200kg of walnuts This is despite UN warning of potential “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang and House of Commons declaring "genocide" - which China denies 2

UK airlines European Cargo & Titan Airways have launched freight routes from Ürümqi to London, Cardiff & Bournemouth Both say they abide by UK law But details of UK imports remained a mystery I teamed up with analysts from @ImportGenius who accessed China's customs records 3

A spreadsheet of Chinese customs records contains more than 12,000 entries from July last year to June 2025, each one logging a different type of product sent to the UK every month The total comes to £809m And the monthly totals have soared since last summer 4

Imports include goods specifically linked to forced labour in Xinjiang - such as more than £30m of cotton products @John Sudworth reported in 2020 how Xinjiang cotton is harvested by more than half a million workers probably coerced into the work 5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-cotton…

There were £2.3m of tomato imports, despite Uyghur testimony that workers who pick the fruit are sometimes beaten or even given electric shocks if they do not meet their quotas See this BBC report from last year 6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crezlw4y152o…

Solar cells and fittings worth £1.1m were dispatched to the UK That's despite concerns about forced labour in Xinjiang's solar sector being so severe that the Government is banning GB Energy from using tech produced in the region 7 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yrg7pkzpxo…

Wigs made of human hair - valued at more than £34,000 - also arrived in the UK That's despite concerns that products like these could be using hair cut straight from the heads of Uyghur prisoners 8 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/02/us/china-hair-uyghur-cpb-trnd…

And it's highly probable that far more imports like these are arriving in the UK without us knowing The data purely shows goods being sent straight from Xinjiang to the UK - but many others will be transported around China or abroad before coming to the UK 9

Campaigner @Rahima Mahmut, who moved from Xinjiang to the UK in 2000, told me: "These findings make my blood boil… The UK must stop turning a blind eye and take urgent action to end complicity" 10

Labour's @Sarah Champion says UK is letting down "enslaved people we should be protecting" Peer @Lord (David) Alton says the UK’s anti-slavery laws are failing "on a colossal scale" @Uyghur Human Rights Project and @Anti-Slavery International have also expressed outrage at what we've uncovered 11

The Government has refused to ban Xinjiang imports but is currently reviewing trade policy It said: "No company in the UK should have forced labour in its supply chains" China's embassy claims: "There is no ‘forced labour’ or ‘genocide’ in Xinjiang" 12 https://inews.co.uk/news/uk-800m-slave-labour-china-imports-bras-lawnmowers-3871242…