MI5 Director: U.K. Faces Growing Threats from Russia, China, Iran—and Far-Right Extremists

From my years working there I know Northern Ireland is always complex – and often poorly understood from a distance. I can’t say that current strains are all about the Protocol – they’re not. And neither can I say current strains have nothing to do with the Protocol – that wouldn’t be true either. What is clear is that leadership – and listening – on all sides is required to maintain the progress for which all communities have made compromises, and from which all communities have hugely benefited.

As I discussed with a range of people when visiting last month, I am and I remain a long-term optimist on Northern Ireland. The 1998 Belfast Agreement and the long process which led up to it, stands as one of the finest public policy achievements of my lifetime. It has enabled a whole generation to grow up substantially free of the scarring which haunted previous generations. The holding of multiple identities – British, Irish, Northern Irish – is a living reality for many people, in a way it was not in my youth. Those are deep shifts, which make a return to Troubles-scale terrorism highly unlikely. But many of the powerful aspirations of the Belfast Agreement remain unfulfilled; and the legacy of the past still casts a long shadow, hindering the reconciliation that Northern Ireland needs to move forward. For MI5’s part, we will remain vigilant, working with partners both to pre-empt specific attack plots, and to grind away at the underlying capabilities of the terrorist organizations. 

The second variety of terrorism occupying MI5 attention is Extreme Right Wing Terrorism, for which MI5 took on lead responsibility just over a year ago. This now comprises a substantial minority slice of the risk we’re managing by one in five of our counter-terrorist investigations in Great Britain are Extreme Right Wing. Of the 29 late-stage attack plots disrupted over the last four years, fully 10 have been Extreme Right Wing. We are progressively finding more indicators of potential threat. By way of example, last month a man in Somerset, Dean Morrice, was sentenced to eighteen years in prison, having been convicted of possessing explosives. He was seeking to use a 3D printer to manufacture a firearm. Morrice was stopped before he was able to carry out any attack, but before his arrest had been actively trying to draw others into his toxic ideology. Extreme Right Wing Terrorism is here to stay, as a substantial additional risk for MI5 to manage.

This threat has some challenging characteristics: a high prevalence of teenagers, including young teenagers where the authorities’ response clearly has to blend child protection with protecting communities. Frequently, obsessive interest in weaponry, presenting difficult risk management choices even when it’s not clear whether the weaponry is directly linked to extremist intent. And always, always, the online environment – with thousands exchanging hate-filled rhetoric or claiming violent intentions to each other in extremist echo chambers – leaving us and the police to try to determine which individuals amongst those thousands might actually mobilize towards violence. This needs new expertise, new sources , new methods.

And finally, Islamist Extremist Terrorism, still MI5’s largest operational mission. Alongside all the focus rightly being given to State Threats, Islamist Extremist Terrorism remains a potent, shape-shifting threat. The shape and scale of what we face in the UK continues to be heavily influenced by events upstream in theatres of conflict, and how they are presented online. Over the last decade the overseas location exerting greatest influence on the UK threat has been – and remains – Syria, with over 950 UK-linked extremists getting there… and Islamic State reaching back here with slick English-language online propaganda. 2021’s Islamic State is nowhere near the force that 2015’s was: that is the result of sustained pressure and hard-won progress by a broad international coalition. But much counter terrorism remains to be done.

With partners we’re also working to tackle re-emerging extremist threats in Africa, principally Somalia. Meanwhile in Afghanistan, twenty years of dedicated effort have had profound effect: the Al Qaida terrorist infrastructure we faced in 2001 is long since gone. I want to take this moment to pay tribute to the military colleagues whose heroism and sacrifice achieved those vital gains. As NATO and US forces now withdraw, terrorists will seek to take advantage of opportunities – including propaganda opportunities – to rebuild. For the US and for ourselves, the counter-terrorist task will transition. As we seek to illuminate potential threats to take disruptive action, we will have neither the advantages nor the risks of having our own forces on the ground. This form of counter terrorism is not new to us – it’s how we’ve always operated in Somalia, for instance; but from that experience we know it is challenging. 

Back in the UK, as we near the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, we’re still contending with large volumes of risk, presented to differing degrees by many thousands of live and closed subjects of interest – often coming at us faster and more unpredictably. Every week the police and I brief the Home Secretary on the most immediate threats to life with which we’re dealing. It requires constant vigilance. 

Week by week, my teams, working with their close colleagues in the police and other agencies, detect potential threats and make, at volume, difficult judgements. Which fragments of information seem most likely to be pointing towards real risk? Which fragments – usually the majority – are misleading; or exaggerated; or indeed accurately reflect terrorist discussions – but discussions which will forever remain aspirational, and never translate into concrete plotting? So many of the hardest decisions we take in MI5 come down to prioritization. Every decision to investigate X is, in effect, a decision not to investigate Y or Z. We make these difficult, necessary judgements with the utmost seriousness, always conscious of the responsibility we carry.