Okay, so just how bad is the War on Terror going to get… and in the meantime what is the purpose of the new MI5 Headquarters in Northern Ireland?

Most people are aware that MI5, or the Security Service, have a new headquarters in Palace Barracks in Holywood, Northern Ireland.

The Phoenix [sub req’d] has an unusual piece about this headquarters, unusual because rather than a knocking piece on British involvement in the North it lists the various theories as to why MI5 would increase their presence in Northern Ireland at this point in time and come up with some worrying conclusions.

Apparently up to 400 employees of MI5 have moved from Thames House in London to Holywood. The Phoenix notes that the simple theory for their presence is that they will have some sort of oversight or controlling brief during the ‘transition’ to an agreed political structure in the Six Counties. And this is worrying, if only because one wonders what sort of oversight they will be under. Apparently, and again according to the Phoenix, it was agreed at the St. Andrews talks that the PSNI would have overall control under MI5 supervision of surveillance, agent handling and other operations. This seems unlikely if only because Sinn Féin are on target for a date with destiny and ultimate shared control through the Stormont Executive of policing. Difficult to see MI5 entirely sanguine about Sinn Féin ministers gaining access to intelligence garnered by their good selves. And yet, on the other hand, anyone who saw the body language between the main protagonists at the talks, and in particular the British and Sinn Féin, might be forgiven thinking that the conflict wasn’t a decade or more behind us, but long in the dim and distant past.

In any case the Phoenix posits an even more interesting theory that the real reason for such an impressive expansion of MI5’s presence in Ulster is due to rather more pertinent and local concerns on the part of London regarding the ‘War on Terror’. The Phoenix points to the easy links between London and Holywood, the developed security infrastructure and the simple truth that in the event of a serious nuclear, biological or even conventional attack on London, MI5 would be able to continue their operations from the relative tranquillity of the North. The Phoenix claims that some 20% of the budget for the Security Service is tied up in the move to Holywood. That’s interesting.

I don’t know though, it seems fanciful. Why not go for Scotland or Wales which would both be closer?

And yet, I don’t buy into the paranoid theorising of dissident Republicans who seem to think that the Holywood base is just the continuation of the ‘war’ by other means. The threat from dissident Republicanism isn’t of such scale as to justify such a presence, nor is the situation in the North so dismal, even should Plan B be necessary, that one can envisage the necessity for x number of MI5 personnel or indeed see how they could assist matters to any great degree.

So one is left with a puzzle. The Phoenix notes that one possible answer to that puzzle is that operations against jihadists South of the Border may well be one of the concerns of MI5, and it proposes that any agreements at St. Andrews regarding the relationship between MI5 and the PSNI wouldn’t operate as regards the territory of the Republic. Seeing as our own Taoiseach was present at the talks one hopes that any such activities (and although this may raise howls of disagreement, there are strong arguments that such activities could well be necessary) would be subject to agreement between our two sovereign nations.

But overall it leaves the disturbing impression that those who should have some idea about such things consider that London remains a target for much worse events than have been seen up to now. Now perhaps that’s stating the obvious, but it seems to point to there having been no progress in dealing with such terrorism over the past four or five years. Or worse again that the situation has become dramatically more serious.