Which way for MI5? (1)
01 January 1991
Which way for MI5?
artdoc April=1992
The demise of the Soviet `threat' has lead to far-reaching
reviews of the role of intelligence and security agencies in the
USA and Europe including those of MI6 (espionage) and MI5
(internal security). In Holland the Inlichtingendienst Buitenland
(IDB) MI6's equivalent foreign intelligence has just been
abolished. The internal security service, the BVD, MI5's opposite
number, has recently completed a `threat analysis' for the post-
Cold War era (see story below). A senior official summed up the
direction of their thinking: `the days of domestic security
doctrine are over: we are thinking European now'. Is this the
direction that MI5 will go in? If it does will it run up against
opposition from MI6 and the Special Branch? In the past the
respective roles have been as follows. MI6, the Secret Service,
collects intelligence (military, political and economic) and
conducts espionage and destabilisation operations outside the UK
and colonies. MI5, the Security Service, deals with espionage and
subversion within the UK and the colonies. The Special Branch,
founded in 1883 to combat Irish Fenian bombings, has maintained
this role in Britain while also helping MI5 with espionage and
counter-subversion.
The ending of the Cold War poses more of a threat to MI5's
continued existence than to MI6. MI6 claims that there are many
potential threats to the interests of the UK, in the EC, Eastern
Europe and the Third World. The gathering of political and
economic intelligence, countering rival espionage agencies, as
well as keeping an eye on the nascent democracies in Eastern
Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) ensures
its role well into the future. The exchange of intelligence with
the KGB and other East European agencies on Third World countries
previously close to the Soviet Union is one of its current
priorities.
With decolonisation MI5 saw its role contract but this coincided
with the increased Soviet `threat' which gave it a new role.
Counter-espionage against the Soviet espionage in the UK and
counter-subversion against supposed Communist sympathisers were
it main tasks. In the seventies it also developed a counter-
terrorist branch. Now with the ending of Soviet espionage and
subversion, real or imagined, and with their own assessment that
internal subversion is at a low point, MI5 is searching for a new
role. One of the questions raised in a report currently being
considered by the Joint Intelligence Committee is whether or not
MI5 should extend its role and take charge of investigating IRA
terrorism in Britain. Police chiefs alarmed at this possible
extension of MI5's role leaked the story to the newspapers. If
MI5 takes over terrorism then it will be drugs next is the police
believe. Terrorism has been the issue which has allowed MI5 to
take a major part in the working groups of Trevi (the inter-
governmental grouping outside of EC structures). It also
participates in the `Police Working Group on Terrorism' -
meetings of EC security services, Special Branches and police.
Indeed, there is an argument that the EC is becoming part of the
`domestic' rather than a `foreign' sphere. For its part, the
Special Branch in the Metropolitan Police through its European
Liaison Section (ELS) has established links with its counterparts
since 1976 and has a dedicated communications system. But it was
MI5 who trailed and pinpointed three IRA people in Gibraltar who
were shot dead in 1988. A direct connection is made in the
discussion of a Europe without internal borders between
terrorism, immigration and drugs. Any agency dealing with
terrorism in the UK, and with a remit to cover the EC, has to
have access to the intelligence databases on refugees, asylum-
seekers, visa entrants, and Third World migrants settled within
the EC.
The main indexes on immigrants is held by the Immigration
Department of the Home Office. It ho