Threat to the Jewish community is a national security emergency, not small boats, says counter-terrorism tsar
The Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, has said the potential for Iran to put IRGC on small boats crossing the Channel is “a risk factor” but not a crisis.
Speaking on GB News, he said: “The numbers are so big: 50 within 12 months. To put some context, there are about 250 terrorism-related arrests in a year. So just to have 50 Iran-related arrests, I think just really gives you perspective on the scale.
“And clearly, that was the message that Ken McCallum wanted to communicate. He was not saying, ‘Don’t worry, carry on’. He was actually saying this is big and this is very real. So I was [surprised]. The numbers are big.
“I think [the small boats] are a risk factor. So I think you’d be crazy to believe that people coming into the country from countries like Iran don’t carry the risk of being exploited.
“Now I’ll put this in as a neutral way. It may be that there are all sorts of IRGC agents coming in on small boats. I don’t know. That must be a possibility. But at the very least, you’ll have people who’ve come. They’ll end up in the asylum system. They may be disappointed.
“Either they don’t get asylum, or they are disappointed about the life they were expecting to have. They may have family back home, and those are the sort of people who can be exploited in terms of money, maybe pressure being put on family members.
“So, I mean, I wouldn’t say, I mean, a crisis to me is what’s happening to the Jewish community, and I’ve described that as a national security emergency because I would describe attacks as an emergency or as a crisis.
“I wouldn’t say that it’s a crisis, but I would say it’s a risk factor, and it is relevant to national security.
“I have not had an intelligence briefing [on RAF Fairford]. My hunch is that that is American intelligence of some sort of higher up puppet string-pulling, and that is more or less what the Prime Minister has said today.
“In terms of why are these people released on bail, and I don’t want to sound like some sort of crowd pleaser shouting, ‘Well done, the police!’ but I’ve been doing this job for seven years. I have quite a lot to do with counter-terrorism police who investigate both the terrorism and the state threats.
“They are remarkably competent people, and without knowing the details, actually I don’t really feel like second-guessing the decisions.
“The Americans have definitely withdrawn their planes. All of that can be true, but if you’re asking me why have they been released on bail as opposed to remanded in custody, I tend to trust these local operational decisions. There’s probably wheels within wheels.
“That doesn’t mean that there’s no threat. I do have confidence in [counter terrorism police] because I spend a lot of time with them. One of the nice tasks I have is to go to the covert locations, go to the ports, go to the counterterrorism operating centre in West London, to go to MI5, go to New Scotland Yard.
“I talk to these people, and I ask the sort of stupid question. Excuse me, can I ask a dumb question? You know, why are you doing it in that way? And I mean, they are a very well-motivated, professional lot of people.
“The problem actually is that they are so well respected, is that quite a lot of other things in life, like the Southport attacker, so violence fixated individuals, they want sort of throw towards counterterrorism and say, look, here’s one part of the police system that’s working really well, here’s more problems.
“And I think what Ken McCallum was saying today, reading between the lines, is we’ve got some really big deals on our plates. We’ve got terrorism. We’ve got state threats. Now we’ve got AI. Please, society, can you do more to help us? Because we’ve got enough on our plate. I think that’s what he was saying.”
