The director general of MI5, the UK’s domestic security service, has urged stronger co-operation with the EU to help tackle growing terror threats.
Speaking at a meeting of European security heads in Berlin, Germany, MI5 head Andrew Parker insisted that despite the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, intelligence co-operation between the two powers could continue to be necessary to tackle growing terror threats.
Parker highlighted current intelligence sharing efforts, and revealed that the UK’s intelligence agencies have foiled 12 terrorist plots since a terror attack in London last March, and a total of 25 potential attacks since 2013, in part thanks to intelligence shared between European authorities.
Why is intelligence sharing more important than ever?
The MI5 chief gave a number of reasons why intelligence sharing is a vital element of efforts to tackle growing terror threats. The first is that the nature of the threat is changing, with a growing number of lone wolf terror attacks.
Further, Parker pointed to the changing nature of threats from state actors, including cybersecurity challenges, which can target multiple countries at once and often require co-ordinated efforts to be avoided.
In particular, Parker pointed to Russia, which has been accused of attempting to poison former spy Sergei Skripal in a state-sponsored attack in Salisbury, UK, in March of this year. Further, Russia has been accused of a campaign of cyberattacks and attempting to influence voters during the 2016 US Presidential Election campaign.
How will this change after Brexit?
Intelligence services have sought assurances from UK prime minister Theresa May that the sharing of information among security services will not be affected by Brexit. May had initially aimed to use intelligence sharing as a negotiating tool while making Brexit agreements, but backed down after the heads of UK intelligence services wrote to her to protest.
Agencies from both powers are operating under the assumption that intelligence sharing will continue in much the same way, but new legislation may be needed to facilitate this, and should be agreed as soon as possible to ensure that preventing terrorism is still possible.
