Threat from Russia distracting 'stretched' MI5 from counterterrorism efforts
6 December 2024, 21:31
MI5 has been left “stretched” as the growing threat from Russia distracts from counter-terrorism efforts, according to its chief.
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The UK’s intelligence agency has been forced to move its focus from counterterrorism to the threat posed by Russia and its allies, Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, said.
Britain is facing a once-in-a-generation challenge, he warned, as he laid out the “grander and more sophisticated attacks” from hostile states across the globe.
In a conversation seen by the Times, Mr McCallum said the UK only has “finite” recourses and has been forced to make “uncomfortable choices” in recent years.
“We now face much, much more aggression from nation-states,” the intelligence chief said.
“In effect, we had the 20 to 30-year holiday from that kind of big player, sophisticated states in serious conflict with each other. It’s back, I’m afraid.
“And so there is something quite profound about that … We’ve had to make some of those uncomfortable choices in recent years; how could we pare back a bit on the amount of our capacity we are spending on countering terrorism in order to be ready to meet these somewhat grander and more sophisticated, in some respects, threats from nation states.”
As this threat grows, Britain is also facing a counter-terrorism threat from teenagers who have radicalised online.
During the conversation, which is set to be released as a podcast to civil servants, Mr McCallum reportedly said Britain has spent the last two decades “preoccupied” with terrorism but has been forced to shift its focus following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
He reportedly said: “We’ll be looking at how much of our finite capacity can we spend on state activity from Russia or Iran or China; how much do we have to spend on various forms of terrorism, but also how much of our capacity can we spend on things that we think might be a threat tomorrow morning; and how much do we have to keep back to plan for how we are capable to do what the nation needs us to do in five years’ time?
“We need to invest in new technology, new skills. So you always have some version of these uncomfortable choices.”
He added: “You don’t have enough capacity to pursue everything.”
He opened up on how MI5 tackles “deeply misguided” teenagers who become radicalised on the internet.
He said: “It won’t always be the right approach to go for the criminal justice outcome, prosecution, in all of those cases. Sometimes that’s unavoidable, if the risk is very intense and very immediate. But in other cases, you may have a deeply misguided person who’s consumed too much of the wrong things on the internet. And some other form of intervention — typically at local level, not coming from MI5, but coming from someone closer — is probably a better long-term piece of risk management for the nation.”
