MI5 chief: We can’t stop every terrorist

Security situation isn’t under control, he warns

MI5 chief Andrew Parker has admitted it is impossible to track every extremist in Britain.

Sir Andrew, who stands down as director general in April, said the Security Service could not closely monitor thousands of extremists who may be plotting attacks.

He also said the agency was ‘ not ever in control’ of terrorist incidents.

In a candid interview for a documentary on ITV Tonight, he added: ‘I usually have said to ministers, successive home secretaries over the years, if and when there’s another terrorist attack, the very high likelihood is that it will be done by somebody who appears in our records somehow, because we have worked really, really hard at trying to understand which people in this country are across this landscape of extremism.

‘And there are thousands of them and we cannot – cannot – monitor closely what all those people are doing all the time.’

During a six-month period in 2017 the UK was hit by five attacks in Manchester and London and dozens of civilians were killed. Some of the perpetrators were known to MI5 at the time.

Asked if he felt he wasn’t in control of the security situation in that period, Sir Andrew said: ‘Well, we’re not in control of it ever, are we. To be in control would mean that somehow we could manage this whole landscape and stop everything. We can’t. We can’t do that.’

MI5 handles around 3,000 active subjects of interest (SOIs) at any one time. But it also holds roughly 20,000 files on so-called ‘closed SOIs’ – people who have been looked at but are no longer considered to pose a threat.

Mr Parker also spoke about how he felt when he heard about the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017 in which 22 people were killed, including many children.

He said: ‘I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had a sinking feeling.

‘Of course, you’re speaking to me as the director general of MI5 but, you know, I’ve got a family. I’ve got kids.

‘And yeah, of course – it’s the worst of the worst situation.’

Speaking on Inside MI5: Keeping The UK Safe, which is screened on ITV tomorrow at 7.30pm, he criticised social media firms for not doing enough to combat terror.

Sir Andrew said that while the real world was regulated, he found it ‘ mystifying’ the same was not applied online, calling cyberspace a ‘wild west’.

He said that in certain circumstances, internet firms had to find ways to give governments more information from encrypted private messages.

Yesterday, he showed the Queen around MI5’s HQ, Thames House in central London, during her first visit to the agency.

Only Sir Andrew could be identified during the royal visit, which was not publicised in advance, with everyone else kept out of photographs and television footage.

Speaking to staff, she said: ‘Because of the nature of your work, it is without public recognition, so it is on behalf of the country that I say to you all, thank you.’