A very British coup? “They have spies, we have agents”

Written by: (Contributed) on 15 May 2025

Moves to find a suitable replacement for the outgoing MI6 chief in London have revealed serious considerations at the very centre of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which also has implications for the elite Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.

The fact the controversy has already spilled over into the public domain remains evidence, in itself, of the depth of the problem; MI6 would appear to be experiencing problems adapting to modern trends of intelligence-gathering, with implications for subsequent accurate analytical assessments from the world's trouble-spots and areas of interest.

Sir Richard Moore, MI6 chief, has planned for his retirement in a few months’ time and the search has already begun to find a suitable successor. Britain's overseas intelligence services
have a long history reaching back to imperial yesteryear; shadowy figures with fingers remain in pies all over the world. Controversy, nevertheless, has arisen about modern intelligence-gathering techniques which have tended to supersede 'penetration agents'. (1)

Previously the British State relied upon agents, often portrayed in works of fiction to avoid unnecessary finger-pointing and fears of prosecution under the draconian Official Secrets Act. British writer Graham Greene was but one; he wrote about 'Greenland'. His various works, for example, portrayed a well-placed British spy in pre-revolutionary Batista's Cuba in the 1950s operating undercover selling vacuum cleaners. (2) He was never identified.

One of Greene's later works revealed quite accurately the problem confronting Whitehall when dealing with Apartheid South Africa. The country was regarded as strategic for western defence and security provision although Apartheid was not considered acceptable. (3) The book also provided a glimpse of the faceless bureaucrats who were employed in the almost unaccountable layers of bureaucracy filled from elite patronage systems which rested upon Gentlemen's Clubs and elite dining facilities where counterparts could meet for confidential and discreet 'talk' about mutual areas of interest, without fear of detection.

MI6, historically, has operated as overseas intelligence, under the head of state, and linked into the Commonwealth and elsewhere through the Foreign Office. In practice, the head of state, has relied upon the Privy Council, an executive of the House of Lords, to usually act on their behalf. MI6 was then linked into domestic intelligence, MI5, through the joint-intelligence committee usually headed by the Home Secretary, operating on behalf of the prime minister of the day. Their joint pre-occupation and obsession was/is identifying and assessing threats to the class and state power of the realm. They are, moreover, inherently right-wing and racist, which has continually interfered with their focus, judgements and opinions on numerous occasions. They are clearly not the font of all wisdom.

The two intelligence services frequently operate through other government departments and corporate entities; the Post Office in the UK was a good example. While ostensibly providing telecommunications and postal services, it provided a convenient cover for clandestine operations. It also provided technical training for foreign nations within the British Commonwealth. Its internal security system, the Special Investigation Branch (SIB), was well-known for links with the intelligence services and the preoccupation and obsession with spying on the entire workforce under the guise of 'security vetting'. (4) The telecommunications systems in military facilities used by NATO's secret armies had to be protected at all costs; the fascists they deployed operated within a culture of impunity. (5)

Secrecy, however, has shielded non-reliable sources of intelligence and their questionable assessments; Hanslope Manor estate, for example, is owned by the UK, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. It is also home to the British Government Communications Centre and within easy reach of Whitehall in the City of Milton Keynes. Housing extensive archives from its imperial past, the institution has been described as 'the fortress-like warehouse for top-secret government files'. (6) Most of the estimated 1.2 million documents will never be declassified; they are generally recognised as containing incriminating evidence about Britain's imperial past. Silence remains the order of the day.

Sir Richard Moore would appear to have followed the old tradition, serving undercover in Vietnam, Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia before becoming British Ambassador in Turkey. (7)
The country remains one of vital interest; its former imperial past has continued to provide links into the modern-day Islamic World. Recent references in the public domain to the sensitive British-based GCHQ listening station, linked into the elite Five Eyes of the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, however, show how intelligence-gathering has tended to move away from strategically placed individual agents quietly collecting information, toward massive downloads of intercepted data from telecommunications facilities.

It has led to concerns that 'MI6 is losing its cutting edge in a world where the vast bulk of actionable intelligence is gathered by GCHQ'. (8)

Moves which began with the Echelon system in the Five Eyes decades ago which had the facilities to provide 'an awesome spying capacity for the USA, allowing it to monitor continuously most of the world's communications targeting civilian as well as military traffic', have now been upgraded to include the internet. (9)

The Echelon system relied upon computer systems in various strategically placed stations around the world which were programmed with chosen key-words, allowing 'each station to collect all the telephone calls, faxes, telexes, internet messages and other electronic communications that its computers have been programmed to select for all its allies and automatically sends this intelligence to them'. (10)

In recent years, however, the 'National Security Agency's attention has shifted to finding ways to exploit the global reach of Google, Microsoft, Venizon and other US technological powers'. (11) The NSA, at the centre of the Five Eyes, is now faced with huge troves of intelligence gathered from on-line facilities.

It has not made the work of intelligence services easier; in fact, to the contrary, it has led to the problems recently publicised by MI6. More intelligence gathered has required more analysts to provide assessments. It has not proved cost effective.

When dealing with the large-scale troves on intelligence, a former intelligence officer was recently quoted as stating 'they have lost their way … they seem to have forgotten that their job is agent handling and running and recruiting'. (12) Another former MI6 officer who applied for the top job 'called for a return to classic recruitment of penetration agents … your organisation needs a complete reset'; they did not make the short-list. (13)

Published sources have revealed front-runner for the top MI6 job is Dame Barbara Woodward, Britain's Ambassador to the United Nations, who is also the most senior woman employed in the Foreign office. A China specialist, Woodward was Ambassador to Beijing during 2015-20. (14)

The appointment takes place at a time when 'the security services have alleged that Chinese spies have penetrated the inner circle of the Duke of York, infiltrated political circles, hacked businesses and attacked Hong Kong dissidents in the UK. Intelligence officials say Chinese spying activity is on an industrial scale'. (15)

In conclusion, whether we will see a return to the days of yonder and Colonel Daintry, however, who 'had a two-roomed flat in St. James's Street which he found through the agency of another member of the firm. During the war it had been used by MI6 as a rendezvous for interviewing possible recruits … few people who walked down St. James's Street knew of the court's existence. It was a very discreet flat', remains, as yet, to be established. (16)

The secret contribution made by Colonel Daintry and his associates to the maintenance of the British State and all which that entailed, nevertheless, has remained neatly filed away at Hanslope Manor, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. The elite patronage systems of which the intelligence agents formed part, have remained intact for centuries and appear even stronger now than yesteryear. Labour governments may have challenged them, but reform was never on the horizon or even an agenda item.

In fact, Labour governments appear to have been accommodated and assimilated within the morass. Governments may come and go with the following of established constitutional procedures, the bureaucracy on which they rest and depend upon, however, has not experienced serious discord since the heady days of the English Civil War, 1642-49.

When Peter Wright wrote Spycatcher and spilled the beans on one of the oldest professions in the world, perhaps he wrote it on behalf of all of them!

1. 'Beijing Barbara' leads race to be first female MI6 chief, Australian, 12 May 2025.
2. See: Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene, (1958)
3. See: The Human Factor, Graham Greene, (London, 1978).
4. Spycatcher, Peter Wright, (Victoria, 1988), pages: 7, 18, 45, 46, 83, 131, 172.
5. See: NATO's Secret Armies, Daniele Ganser, (2005); and, Late 1940s-1990s, Europe: Building Right-Wing Terror Groups; and, EU Resolution (1990) on Operation Gladio (ie., sword); and, 1950-now, Germany: 'Stay Behind” Forces and Neo-Nazism, Psywar Terror Tactics, A People's History of the CIA., December 2000, (Ottawa), Issue 43, pp. 11-12.
6. 'King Charles, Caroline Elkins, 29 October 2023.
7. Australian, op.cit., 12 May 2025.
8. Ibid.
9. See: Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2003), pp. 89-93.
10. Ibid.
11. The intelligence coup of the century, The Washington Post, 11 February 2020.
12. Australian, op.cit., 12 May 2025.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. The Human Factor, op.cit., page 104