In news that will be a surprise to absolutely no one, The Guardian reported yesterday afternoon that:
Extremists holding anti-immigration opinions are becoming increasingly likely to consider carrying out terrorist attacks against immigration centres and asylum hotels in the UK, the head of MI5 has warned.
Ken McCallum said a shift from radicalised rightwing sentiment to violence was “the most marked trend” in the spy agency's caseload over the past year, contributing to a rise in the overall UK terror threat level.
I confess that if you had told me, maybe only 15 years ago, that a report like this would now be unsurprising, and might even confirm what almost everybody in this country already knows, I would not have believed that possible.
Very obviously, I now not only do believe that, but in this case, I think the government is telling us the truth, which is not always the case.
Those who subscribe to and promote a toxic form of ethnic and supposedly religious-based nationalism, which promotes a culture of hate, will almost invariably breed amongst their ranks people who are willing to be violent in pursuit of their aims. That is because, by necessity, they must depersonalise those they deem “others” within our society to maintain their claim that they must be expelled from it.
It is very obvious that both Reform and, in an even more extreme form, Restore seek to promote this type of thinking, as do other very obvious extremist groups. But I do not exonerate politicians within the Tories, in particular, and, in part, Labour from blame either.
Far too much Conservative Party language is based on this idea of “othering”. Those who are targeted include social security claimants, those with special educational needs, people with disabilities, anyone who is not heterosexual, those who are not Christian, and, most especially, those who are deemed not to be of an ethnic origin in this country, although the reality is that we all share common ancestors, wherever we are in the world, and whatever our appearance might be, making the concept of “otherness” totally absurd.
Labour's offensive language includes that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood too often uses about migration, which I often take offence at.
It is important to note that those promoting this ideology pose risks. But just as important is that actions follow words, and the reality is that they do not seem to. If this risk is so significant, and the head of MI5 seemed keen to suggest it is, why is the government focused on raising defence spending to supposedly secure our borders against threats from Russia when the greater threat already appears to be here?
The question is serious, because I think the government has got its priorities wrong. I find it very difficult to take the threat from Russia very seriously when it remains heavily bogged down in a war in Ukraine, where stalemate appears to be the only likely situation that we will witness for some time to come, with mounting, and saddening, consequences.
I do not dispute that Russia may, despite its attention to that conflict, be planning other attacks, including those against vulnerable infrastructure and our information networks, but even there, the threat from rogue AI appears to be much more significant. The impression that the threat from Russia is being deliberately manufactured to support a particular type of defence spending that suits the interests of the military-industrial complex, as President Eisenhower once called it, is very hard to avoid.
In contrast, the threats from far-right activists and out-of-control AI, also created by organisations that appear in far too many cases to be aligned with the far right, appear to be very real indeed. People are living in genuine fear of both, and for good reason.
Many people who have come to live in the UK from other countries, who I know, are living with a quiet dread of what might happen if right-wing parties secure power in the UK. It is quite reasonable for them to feel this way. The threats are clear, purposefully menacing, deliberately expressed and are almost certainly no longer controlled by those who started the process of their creation. Rogue agents are, in other words, now threatening to act on them.
A similar description applies to the threat from AI. This threat is clear, menacing, deliberately explained and almost certainly no longer controlled by those who created the opportunity for its perpetuation. Rogue agents are now likely to deliver the consequent actions.
I am not claiming to have seen the background risk assessments which, if politicians are to be believed, suggest that the threat from Russia is bigger than these two causes for concern, but I am not sure that I need to. I have lived a life of being told that Russia is a threat to my well-being, and whilst I am not in any way a friend to Putin, nor do I believe this narrative that has been an undercurrent of my existence since childhood.
On the other hand, threats from the far right and AI are tangible, clearly present, and rapidly increasing. Why they are not the security issues to which the greatest attention is being given, with matching funding, baffles me.
If we need greater defence spending, it is not on conventional weaponry, nuclear armaments, aircraft carriers, or even, maybe, new fighter jets. The defence required will come from delivering services that meet the needs of the people of this country. This will require that threats from the far right are neutered, and that better regulation of all those neoliberal corporations that think that they have a right to exist irrespective of the harm that they cause to our well-being, including their threat to the perpetuation of our lives as we know them, is required. Far too many of those companies do that, including AI companies, banks, and those that create so much of the pollution that has caused climate change, and still do.
A proper defence policy would tackle these issues. The threats from Russia appear to pale into insignificance in comparison.
So, why are our politicians focusing on all the wrong defence policies? That is the question to which I need an answer.
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I suggest that the additional big areas of concern, and these may well be areas where Russia could/is involved are
1. Funding Domestic Politics – the funding and support around Brexit and its related parties are opaque and the Government now seems to agree that Russia did interfere in the Brexit referendum and
2. Commissioning activity in the UK, there does seem to be a market for ‘Criminals for hire’ they may not be much good but they done necessarily have to be to cause disruption
I suspect that the ‘Likely Suspects’ wont be that concerned about what they fund as the disruption whatever it is will suit their interests
Bigger picture it boils down to proxy wars between ‘democracies’ vs autocracies/theocracies (Russia/China/Iran). The latter can build capacity and act faster due to lack of opposition at home and sow discord abroad. Do they have open border policies? Why not?
I suspect the reason that governments of all colours will not follow your prescription is that it would expose the farrago that is the establishment. Nobody in power wants to reveal how they benefit from siloing issues and avoid investing in really making people’s lives better.
You use the word “othering” correctly, but it can also explain why Russia can be portrayed as the bad guy, but also why, by definition, right wing groups can’t be.
Might you explain?
The Centre for Social Justice report that of new jobs since 2024, 734k went to UK nationals, 408k EU citizens and c. 2.5 million to the Rest of the World. Could government policy be a factor?
I most definitely need a citation for that. We have not created 3.6 million new jobs since 2024 so that makes no sense at all.
Oops typo! Since 2014 apparently
I’m sure the CSJ are doing this for the right reasons, but figures like these, out of context, give ammunition to the far-right.
The findings are published in State of Dependency, a 250-page report and part one of the Centre for Social Justice’s landmark Welfare 2030 inquiry, chaired by former Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP.
As a former Tory responsible for where we are today, Duncan Smith is not the person I would look to as someone who is interested in social justice. He did nothing to promote it when he had the chance.
https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/just-one-in-five-added-payroll-jobs-since-2014-went-to-british-nationals
Thank you
The threats are hybrid and related. In the case of the right-whinge and immigrants: the Tories (& Deform/Fart-rage) see this as a useful tool to poke LINO etc. The Daily Heil/Torygrpah/Scum etc use their megaphones to keep this going – helped (& this is where the hybrid comes in) by Russian bot-farms which fire up the below the line comments.
The so-called security services (& the plods) have over the last three decades been focused on, greens, islamic-trrists, greenies standing on motorway gantries, grannies holding cardboard signs.. the list is long. This is further complicated by the direct influence on the so-called “UK security services” (whose security in whose interest?) by other govs’ including Israel and the USA.
The AI threat could take two forms. Being formally weaponised by various players, including by the likes of Palantir (which has close links to Israel and the US trump-gov) against the UK population. Informally, other govs, such as Russia, will take this route (note the “will”). Meanwhile, ex-politicos such as Tom Watson lobby to give companies such as Palantir more power over UK serfs. The threats are multiple, hybrid, and poorly understood by the liberal-arts graduates/politicos that infest Westminster.
Totally agreed.
But firstly Russia. Russia has what I can only describe as a truly ‘perverse’ take on political science. Having read ‘The Closing of the Russian Mind’ (Kolesnikov, 2026 – thank you Mr Parr) this political science is more like a very sneaky way of waging war using our very idealistically managed internet. I would take Russian interference in UK affairs very seriously – also given that the City was to say the least, very welcoming to them initially (well documented). We have to be smarter going forward, and invest in counter measures.
But the other thing your post promotes in me is a revisionist view of this thing we used to call ‘social security’ (pushed out by the word ‘welfare’). I had always seen social security about helping individuals thrive and survive especially when subject to changes beyond their control (unemployment, sickness, retraining). But reflecting on your very justified comments on the growth of the far right, ‘social security’ takes on a much more pronounced, salient role. The obvious output of a properly funded system of social security is that it produces something that it totally useless to bad actors but really important to the rest of us: solidarity. In solidarity we are a lot less likely to pick a fight with those around us as we are made to compete for scarce resources and resort to ‘identity politics’ – fighting among ourselves, when the ‘fight’ needs to be with governance structures to ensure we are ‘looked after’.
Another way of looking at it is that ‘social security’ (the politics of care now?) is a way to have a peaceful society. Even the ancient Chinese rulers knew about this.
Strongly agree with your point about Social Security.
And re Russis – the way to tackle the issue is to finally close down the City’s services to Russian money here and via our tax havens. It’s not hard to see that. So why doesn’t it happen? You and I know that.
Thank you, Richard.
May I, please, add the BBC’s relentless coverage driven by the Reform and Restore adjacent leaders and even platforming of GB News pundits.
Yesterday, between 6:30 – 7, the BBC featured Yusuf, residents of Whelford (next to Upper Heyford) living in fear (of farm fuel thieves?) and some serial shoplifter of immigrant origin (also on C4 news at 7pm).
This morning, the BBC south news reported children of RNLI volunteers being bullied. What did the BBC expect after shoving a camera in front of volunteers and demand why they picked up migrants at sea. The BBC calls it “greater public scrutiny”.
I live a few miles from Piddington, and have done since January 1971, and note how often the BBC, Sky and Mail visited to wind up locals, going back to June. Around the time of the referendum, the BBC had four different stories uploaded and updated. 350 people live in Piddington. They depend on amenities often staffed by immigrants.
The week-end after the referendum and her interview on the BBC and LBC, Pink Ladies popped round to intimidate a woman and her mixed race family. The woman has lived there for thirty years.
A retired BBC sports presenter lives in the village and mobilised his former colleagues.
I’ve just popped to the local pharmacy for my ‘flu jab and was reminded, again, that we live in a physical world governed by thermodynamics, and the delivery (or not) of ‘real’ goods and services. The charming pharmacist mentioned the increasingly fraught supply chain for commonly-used medications for issues like hypertension (Ramipril), diabetes (Creon), and others. “Makes people rude and worried”, she said. As a diabetic, I am also aware that the supply of insulin products is a little stretched (but not yet critical), too. We are an increasingly medicated society, for good or ill, but these supply issues are merely a reflection of actual shortages.
We can see the same issues of shortage with diesel at present, and I note food price inflation is rising again, driven by lack of crops and, of course, excess demand for out-of-season produce created by the supermarkets back in the days of relatively cheap transportation costs. I was reminded of this, too, when I read a note by Bill Blain about half-empty container ships sailing up the Solent to unload, something not seen for years, excepting ‘lockdown’.
So, setting aside politics and AI/Social Media nonsense, the constraints put upon us all from physical shortages and the sheer unavailability of ‘stuff’, much of which can be classed as “essential things” is perhaps a greater threat.
Mark
All as I have predicted for much of this year, because it was obviously going to happen.
Richard
On a lighter note which we all need:
The only thing worse than the Military-industrial complex for generating fake need to enhance it economic activity (spending of resources) is the Beauty & Haircare-industrial complex. Just go visit any Boots (UK) or ULTA (USA) and you will see exactly what I mean. Both of these dudes create artificial need with scare tactics such as “The Russians are coming” and “Over Sixty mature skin must have Advanced Snail 96 Mucin Power Essence if you do not want to look like you are 70”. The methods are exactly the same. The results are exactly the same except some people might be more willing to spend on snail mucin than defense.
I am amused….
How far in is your tongue poking your cheeck??? LOL! LOL!
Western governments are desperate for an external threat, but, as any horror movie fan will know, the calls are coming from inside the house.
🙂
So, looking back on UK mainland terrorism over my lifetime – IRA bombs and bomb threats, mostly inneffective, esp against mainland military targets, but v disruptive, plus Warrington & Blackpool hotel bombs & Downing St mortars – much more sucessful & serious.
PLO/Black September plane hijackings – a lot of news overage, Entebbe raid – not a significant UK mainland issue (but still tragic for those who died).
More recent Islamist UK mainland campaigns, London, Manchester, involved suicide bombers, with organisation, and good resourcing, which increased the fatalities and the risks.
As for right-wing terrorism – what are its aims? What is their arsenal? How well organised are they? What can we expect? Are we talking drive-by shootings, assaults with motor vehicles on crowds, arson on refugee hotels, dwelling houses (as per NI racist arson recently), hostels, advice & legal centres, churches or cathedrals involved with refugee work, synagogues, mosques, gudwaras, Quaker Meeting Houses cities of Sanctuary, or “random” violence and overt racist harrasment against non-white people (which gets the least news coverage, but is the most damaging).
For me, the absolutely vital question, how committed are the government, and UK justice and penal system to prevention, punishment and deterrence of right-wing terror, and low-level acts of unlawful hatred and provocation, (including unlawful flags on public infratructure), and how committed are they POLITICALLY to discrediting fascist thugs, and agents-provocateur, and dealing with the legitimate grievances that feed this sewer of hate (instead of making things worse with their inflammatory rhetoric and austerity madness).
“PREVENT” tells us how NOT to do it. Can gov’t do something better?
Is there any will to do better?
THAT is the 64,000 Bitcoin question!
Not strictly relevant, but could somebody explain to me why Capita keep getting UK government contracts with such a history of failure – south London borough housing benefit, army recruitment and now public sector pensions admin amongst others.