Wed 14 October 2020:
The boss of MI5 today revealed Russia causes the ‘most aggravation’ to the UK’s security services but warned it is China which represents the biggest long term threat.
Director general Ken McCallum said as of now it is activity from the Kremlin which keeps British spies the busiest when it comes to countering attempted interference from foreign powers.
Speaking to reporters this morning for the first time since taking on the top role in April, Mr McCallum gave a frank assessment of the threats facing the UK.
‘If the question is which country’s intelligence services cause the most aggravation to the UK in October 2020, the answer is Russia,’ he said.
‘If on the other hand the question is which state will be shaping the world across the next decade, presenting big opportunities and big challenges for the UK, the answer is China.
‘You might think in terms of the Russian intelligence services providing bursts of bad weather while China is changing the climate.’
Mr McCallum said the threats being countered by MI5 were no longer ‘just about spies’ or ‘stealing state secrets’ with the security services also facing up to the prospect of assassination attempts and outside interference in UK democracy.
‘These risks have always been sharp in different ways but right now we see a very broad change and one of the big drivers for that is globalisation itself and the increasing reach of the internet and technology which affects us all in our joined up world,’ he said.
On the threat from jihadists, Mr McCallum said there are still tens of thousands of people committed to that ideology.
The challenge was to make the difficult judgements on the small numbers amongst them who are going to turn to violence.
More terrorists these days, he said, have opted for fast, simple plots, giving away fewer clues and less time to find them.
The new threat is from right-wing terrorism, where MI5 took over the lead from the police in April.
Out of 27 terrorist plots disrupted in the last four years, eight have involved right-wing extremists.
Many of the adherents around the world are very young, indicating the problem may be around for some time.
MI5 regularly compares notes with its counterparts in the FBI, European agencies and the other nations in the Five Eyes grouping – US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand .
But so far there has not emerged a single, global, unifying ideology in the way the Islamic State group or al-Qaeda have had.
He said the security services have been ‘rapidly adapting’ how they work in recent months to combat new threats because ‘big shifts in everyone’s lives’ mean there have also been ‘shifts in how our adversaries are operating’.
Mr McCallum said the pandemic had forced MI5 to change some of its tactics, explaining that ‘common sense will tell you that covert surveillance is not straightforward on near-empty streets’.
Mr McCallum, who is in his forties, became the youngest ever MI5 director general when he took over from Sir Andrew Parker, who retired after leading the organisation since 2013.
