Sir John Sawers, an ex-MI6 chief, insisted to Andrew Marr earlier that No10 did not put him up writing today’s article in the Sunday Times saying that Britain needs the EU to ensure its security. I can quite believe it. No10 abandoned this line of argument after the Belgian Airport atrocity, and the subsequent debate which exposed how EU-wide security does not work. We saw, then, that geographical proximity is terrifyingly unrelated to the quality of intelligence collaboration. The French and Belgians were unable to exchange information about terror suspects, in spite of having a common border and common language. If you rely on institutions that don’t work, you put lives at risk. Perhaps that’s why, after the Paris attacks, a French intelligence chief said that his country had become a ‘victim of solidarity with the European Union’.
Both Sir John and Jonathan Evans (his now-ennobled ex-counterpart at MI5 with whom he jointly authored today’s article) will know how little their agencies relied on EU institutions.
Intelligence works via bilateral arrangements – as Sir Richard Dearlove, another ex-MI6 chief, explained in his
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