Head of MI6: ‘Strength of our values will withstand influence from hostile states’

● Alex Younger said banning voices was not the answer

The head of MI6 has cautioned against censoring the voices of hostile states seeking to influence public discourse in Scotland, warning that to do so would lead down a “slippery slope”.

Alex Younger, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), said that although there “limits to what we should allow people to say”, he was against any moves to “restrain” or “ban” their participation.

Asked what steps, if any, the intelligence services should take against the likes of the Kremlin propaganda broadcaster Sputnik, or social media disinformation campaigns, Mr Younger replied: “I don’t think we should do anything. I think we’ve got to be really careful.”

Speaking at his alma mater, the University of St Andrews, Mr Younger said that although he suspected the motives of “the people involved in these decisions,” he had confidence in the “strength of our values” to withstand their influence.

In what was only his second public speech since being appointed to the position known in the intelligence community as “C”, Mr Younger reflected on how, increasingly, “power, money and politics is going east,” posing a “new political reality” which Britain and its allies “need to adjust to”.

Mr Younger – a former captain in the Scots Guards who joined MI6 in 1991 – also said that whatever the outcome of Brexit, Britain will continue to work to “strengthen our indispensable security ties in Europe” as well as working

0 Alex Younger credited the University of St Andrews, his alma mater, as shaping him as a person and instilling in him an open-minded outlook about the world

with other partners around the world to counter “serious threats”.

Issuing a thinly veiled warning to Russia after singling out the “egregious example” of the Salisbury nerve agent attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, Mr Younger said: “When faced by these kinds of attacks, our approach with our allies is to seek to attach a cost to the behaviour.

“Our intention is for the Russian state to conclude that, whatever benefits it thinks it

ALEX YOUNGER

is accruing from this activity, they are not worth the risk.

“We will do this in our own way, according to our laws, and our values.

“We will be successful nonetheless, and I urge Russia or any other state intent on subverting our way of life not to underestimate our determination and our capabilities, or those of our allies.

“We can do this to any opponent at any time.”

Mr Younger said the world was in the “early stages of a fourth industrial revolution

that will further blur the lines between the physical, digits, and biological realms,” where the misuse of technology such as bulk data, machine learning and modern analytics could wrought damage if wielded by a “skilled opponent unrestrained by any notion of law or morality”.

He also credited his formative years at the university with instilling in him an “openminded” outlook about the world, the “value of human curiosity,” and an emphasis on “deeper human relation-

ships than are typical of university life”.

Mr Younger, who studied economics and computer science at the university, graduating in 1986, told the audience: “When I look back on those early days of my work with MI6 and ask myself how I was able to do it, I realise that it owes a great deal to this university.

“More than I knew at the time, St Andrews shaped me as a person.”

“Our intention is for the Russian state to conclude that, whatever benefits it thinks it is accruing from this activity, they are not worth the risk.”