Moore said the MI6 chief giving a speech “is an important part of the way we hold ourselves to account”.
Far more important would be enabling the public to submit FOI requests on MI6, stop censoring MI6 records from national archives & being truly accountable to parliament.
Moore said what all security officials always say in every speech: threat to the UK are “growing” and our “adversaries” are “feeling emboldened”.
In other words, the security agencies need yet more public money. But the UK already has a deeply-embedded national security state.
Moore outlines “the ‘big four’ set of threats: China, Russia, Iran and international terrorism”.
These are traditional threats outlined by the UK elite: they are not those identified by the UK public, who were never asked. In whose interest are these the identified threats?
Moore said: “Everything we do is bound by UK law”.
Moore said: “A democratic society should only grant such powers to its most ethically literate citizens”.
But MI6 is almost completely unaccountable to democratically-elected officials & the public. How do we know MI6 hands such powers only to “ethically literate citizens”?
Moore said he wants “other countries” to be more aware of being vulnerable to a China “where there is no recourse to an independent judiciary or free press”.
Yet MI6 has its own special relationships with many states (eg Gulf dictatorships) just as repressive of media/judiciary
Moore stated the UK must stand up to Russian activity "which contravenes the rules-based international system”.
This is propaganda. MI6 knows full well there is no ‘rules-based international system’ and the UK violates international law as much/more than most other states.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
THREAD. See our investigations into how the UK legal process has been conflicted from the start of the US attempt to prosecute Julian #Assange
The case has implications for media freedom and the US right to prosecute anyone in the world, but also for the independence of UK law
The husband of Lady Arbuthnot, Westminster chief magistrate who initially oversaw #Assange’s extradition case to the US, was shown to have financial links to the British military establishment, including institutions exposed by WikiLeaks.
Lady Arbuthnot had even received financial benefits from two partner organisations of the Foreign Office before her appointment - yet she failed to formally declare conflicts of interests in presiding over the #Assange case.
"There was overwhelming enthusiasm in the British media for the invasion of Iraq. In Afghanistan, it was only after mounting evidence emerged of fatalities that the media began to be critical", writes Richard @NortonTaylor, Guardian defence correspondent for 40 yrs
"The MoD knows how to seduce journalists, by showing off new weapons. This is something defence ministers and officials hope will also keep the military onside and stop them leaking about how bad their equipment is."
The British government welcomed the 2019 coup in Bolivia that overthrew democratically-elected president Evo Morales. It then strongly supported the resulting coup regime. Here's why. Thread.
On 19 December 2019 - the month after Morales fled the country - Britain’s Foreign Office appears to have paid Oxford-based company, Satellite Applications Catapult, £33,220 to optimise "exploitation" of Bolivia’s huge lithium deposits.
In March 2020, five months after democracy was overthrown, the UK embassy acted as a "strategic partner" to the coup regime, and organised an international mining event in Bolivia.
Said @BenJamalpsc of @PSCupdates: “This failure by the government to answer questions about arms exports to Israel is shamefully consistent with its systematic disregard of its own regulatory guidelines regarding arms exports". bit.ly/3w0S30w
Watch our video of a Nigerian helicopter attack on villagers and its aftermath - months after Declassified revealed Nigerian air force pilots were secretly training in the UK. bit.ly/3hmQPZH
Eyewitnesses blame the Nigerian air strikes on a helicopter gunship made by Leonardo, an Italian firm supplying Nigeria with combat aircraft.
The company has close links to the UK government. bit.ly/3hmQPZH
Nazanin’s story in Iran is not just a tragedy, it’s a warning
Richard Ratcliffe
As Iran sentences Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to a further 2 years in Iran, her husband outlines why Britain’s secretive, unaccountable arms trade is a danger to UK citizens
"The money withheld by the British government is the reason Nazanin has been detained in Iran since her arrest in 2016 while on a family holiday with our then 22-month old daughter, Gabriella", writes Richard Ratcliffe.