Home >> Europe >> Great Britain  Email  Print Interview: Member of the UK Parliament and Shadow Minister for Homeland Security Patrick Mercer GP Interviews - 2/11/2007 Patrick Mercer is a Conservative Member of the UK Parliament and Shadow Minister for Homeland Security. Prior to becoming a politician he served as an officer in the British Army, in the Sherwood Foresters regiment. Among other locations he was sent to Northern Ireland and Bosnia and in 1997 received the OBE for services to Bosnia. He left the army in 1999 and worked as a journalist for BBC Radio 4. Patrick was the target of two IRA assassination attempts. An Historian by training, his interests include British 18th and 19th Century History. With two books published to date, Patrick is currently working on a television documentary and another historical volume.
GP: Are recent arrests in London a sign of the British Government finally waking up to the threat from extremists and terrorists based in the UK?
PM: I think that the record of the British Security Services is pretty good. They have interdicted any number of serious plots over the past few years not least of which was the plot of summer 06 to attack 8 air craft in flight between the UK and USA. However, I am less than impressed by the current Government's grasp of counter terrorism matters. There is no one Minister in charge of counter terrorism matters and the counter terrorism strategy, Project CONTEST, was found unfit for purpose by the Government itself in September 2005. Despite this, nothing has been done to replace it.
GP: How great is the Islamist terror threat that the UK faces? How great is the threat that the world, especially the US, faces from radical Islamists?
PM: The threat from Islamist fundamentalists is, I believe, enormous. But, the ideology outstrips the practicality and whilst many radicalised individuals believe in the establishment of an Islamist Umma across the western democracies very few (mercifully) are willing to get involved in the prosecution of that campaign. I am very conscious that a large percentage of US intelligence work is focused upon the Islamist threat from the UK. In the international security community the phrase "Londonistan" still has weight and we ignore the potential for attacks coming from this country and aimed at the US at our peril. That is why the intelligence relationship between the two countries is so important. And that is why last summer's aircraft plot was so dangerous. Not only did it plan to kill up to 4,000 people in the air and as many as it could on US soil below, it also intended to fracture the intelligence links between the two countries. That probably would not have happened but the fact that it was planned is sinister and it was well thought through.
GP: What more could be done in the UK to counter the Islamist terror threat?
PM: The following:
• Create a single security budget with a single Minister of Cabinet rank to oversee that budget and to provide the focus and energy that the DHS now provides in the USA.
• Regroup and reorganise many different agencies into a single border security service. This service would answer directly, under one Chief Executive, to the Security Minister.
• Streamline our Intelligence Agencies. They should answer to one chief who, in turn, answers to the Security Minister.
• Establish a sensible and workable counter terrorist policy (see answer 1 above).
• Start a rolling programme of physical protection for key targets and key personnel across the country.
• Drive forward the largely stalled Muslim outreach programmes that Prime Minister Blair belatedly promised in July 05.
• Initiate a nation wide programme of terrorist awareness
• Raise and inspire bodies of volunteers to assist the Police and security services in prevention of and recovery from terrorist incidents.
• Initiate public training in anti-terrorist precautions.
GP: What more can be done internationally to win the war on terror?
PM: The key to winning the war on terror is to stop thinking about it as a war! I believe that there is a clash of ideology and that Islam is being suborned by a tiny number of twisted individuals who wish to impose their tyranny upon a right thinking majority. So, non-Muslims need a better understanding of Islam and the campaign against Islamists must be led by Muslims themselves. Grand words that are difficult to turn into deeds but, in brief, I believe that the Islamic countries which unwittingly play host to the most serious fundamentalist problems need financial, ideological, social and military support from the west. Clearly, this is already happening to an extent but until such time as the west can be made to understand both the threat and its responsibilities then our response will be patchy. This is an ugly thing to say, but it is only incidents like 9/11 that galvanise liberal democracies into action. Each monstrous incident should be seen not simply as a disaster but as an opportunity for the target country to add its newly hardened resolve to those of other countries that have been attacked. There has got to be a hard nosed initiative from the democracies to engage with those countries from within which the threat springs to try to present a united front against this scourge.
GP: Do you feel the UK/US "special relationship" has come under strain recently?
PM: Of course the "special relationship" is under strain! However, that relationship must be maintained at all costs. We are members of the same family and whilst siblings may well have rows from time to time, the family unit must be strong if it is to survive. There isn't room here for me to expand upon the tensions caused by Afghanistan and Iraq and by the very considerable demands placed upon US intelligence agencies by UK based terrorists. The fact remains that if US and UK cease to work with each other then a crucial synergy will be hopelessly damaged.
GP: Do you feel that private intelligence groups have a role to play?
PM: Every asset that democracies have in the struggle against this new evolution of tyranny must be used. Thus, private military companies and private intelligence agencies will certainly have much to add overall. There will, of course, be concerns from within those democracies but I have no doubt that as the crisis deepens private agencies will prove their worth.
GP: If David Cameron becomes UK Prime Minister do you feel he would make the kind of Prime Minister Britain needs to tackle its terrorist problems?
PM: Whoever leads this country over the next couple of decades will need fully to understand the danger that Islamist fundamentalist pose to it.
GP: How do you see the War on Terror developing over the next ten years?
PM: I believe that we are in for difficult times in the near future and that will involve some reversals but many success. Clearly, the anvil for the forthcoming struggle will be events in the Middle East and avoiding a widespread regional conflict must be key. Our enemies will seek to draw us into just such a fight understanding that what our troops may achieve in the field can be undermined by misplaced an ill-informed liberalism that can erode the will to win. The West must be aware that we will be attacked not just physically but also ideologically and the very freedoms that democracy seeks to enshrine may well be bent against us by skilled propagandists.
There will be major incidents in which we lose thousands and a steady drip of minor incidents. Above all, though, there will be unrelenting psychological and social pressures upon us. Now, we must remember the lessons of previous struggles and whilst never thinking that they are precisely the same, we must take our previous success and adapt them to deal with this new threat. So, in the UK’s case we have got to learn from the errors and triumphs that we had in Northern Ireland. As s tiny example of this, we have got to resist the imprisonment of terrorist suspects without charge for long periods of time. Internment failed miserably in Ulster in the 70's and provoked many moderates to become extremists. We must not follow the same path and deal with Islamists and we have got to intelligently adapt the lessons of the past.
We must seek to make our societies more difficult to attack. Much of that will be ideological but it will also be physical. As an example other countries must look at the way that the US has sought to make its container trade so much less vulnerable. Security must become the underlying key to sound business practice and all commercial concerns must be made to understand their responsibilities. Similarly, our societies have got to be prepared for a long haul, pin-prick campaign by the terrorists. Without needlessly alarming people, our Government have got to stimulate the public's awareness of what our enemies are trying to do and endeavour to make every citizen an adjunct in the security effort. It sounds ambitious but it has been done in the past to counter Nazism, Communism and Irish Republicans and it can be done again.
In a nut shell, the idea of tyranny will be defeated by the idea of freedom so long as tyranny's victims are made aware of the threat. Democratic Governments have got to harden their hearts, appreciate the dangers and understand that legislation and hot air will not protect citizens.
|
