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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

As a Brit, it's weird because unless you're one of a few kinds of activist or visit Northern Ireland, it's pretty much invisible and a largely theoretical threat compared to, say, regular malware or driveby hackers. It's a lot like refusing to go to the US because the risk of being shot by the police is far higher there: statistically true, but as a white tourist it's very unlikely to be a problem.

The other weird thing is about how the war on terrorism is being carried out as invisibly as possible, including what it might claim as "victories": actual convictions of people for terrorist offences. They're not being paraded around in the papers.

The concern lies at the political level: are the security services being deployed against Corbyn? After all the PM did call him a "threat to national security".

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MI5 have a very long, and proud, history of distinguishing between political enmity and "subversive" activity. The history of "entryism" during the Cold War is well documented, and MI5 have declassified information about what they did and did not do. Basically they helped protect the Labour party from infiltration from Communist sympathising individuals who wanted to overthrow Parliamentary democracy. They did not spy on merely left wing individuals.

We're in an age of leaks, and there have been whistleblowers from the UK intelligence services. If MI5 were asked to spy on Corbyn you'd probably hear about it in the resignation letter of the head of the service...

Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security. Not in a sense which he is aiming to destroy the state or country, but that his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict. His views are one which he is entitled to have without state surveillance, he's entitled to stand for public office and entitled to be brutalised by his political opponents for his previous positions, especially on foreign policy.

> Personally I do think Corbyn is a threat to national security... his naive and inconsistent world view would embolden our enemies and be more likely to cause conflict.

I agree with most of your comment, but this one point made me spit my tea all over my screen.

15 years after Tony Blair's 'sexed up' dodgy dossier pushed us into joining the US in the rediculous 'Gulf War 2', which (predictably) resulted in a huge power vacuum in the region, world-wide radicalisation, and further conflict (with no end in sight), it's a little funny that someone outside the usual 'war hawk' template gets accused of being a threat.

Sure, he wants to get rid of Trident, the nuclear missile system that relies so heavily on US guidance infrastructure that the UK physically cannot fire it without US approval. Since it's not independent it has zero tactical value and exists solely as a way of subsidising the US nuclear stockpile while fluffing up our own feathers like a giant mind-numbingly-expensive peacock.

"the UK phsyically cannot fire it without US approval"

I've never seen any evidence supporting that view - we certainly couldn't maintain it for very long without US help but the whole idea of the UK deterrence fleet at the moment is that they have no dependencies on anyone to carry out a launch - for the obvious reason that in most attack scenarios there wouldn't be anyone in the UK left to contact.

"The UK Trident system is highly dependent, and for some purposes completely dependent, on the larger US system."

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmselect/c...

I don't see anything in that says that a UK sub needs US input to launch - in the worst case they don't need any input to launch (they don't have PALs).

Of course, there are dependencies on US systems for lots of things and if the US withdrew support for our Tridents systems we probably couldn't operate them for very long (months - probably, years probably not).

Is it completely "independent" - of course not - it's a US system and there are very few scenarios where the US and UK wouldn't co-ordinate an attack. But does the UK need "permission" to launch - not as far as I know.

The US can withhold targeting data prior to launch, or switch off guidance after launch.

That is all stated as fact in the Parliamentary report. Not sure which part you disagree with.

Sure, you might be able to sneak a launch and hope they don't detect it, but that's a little farcical for a £100bn defence programme I would've thought.

That's appears to be evidence given to a select committee - so it's one person's view.

AFAIK subs don't use GPS underwater - and missile subs spend most of their missions underwater. The missiles themselves use inertial (hence the dependency of knowing the launch point) and star-sighting:

"GPS has been used on some test flights but is assumed not to be available for a real mission."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trident_%28missile%29

I'd be very surprised if the sub don't go to see with at least some target data - kinds of defeats the purpose of the entire system which is set up to give UK Trident sub commanders a surprising amount of leeway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort

[Edit: For the record - I am rather passionately anti-Trident and would strongly prefer the UK didn't have them].

"The Future of the British bomb", John Ainslie

http://www.swordofdamocles.org/pdf/future.pdf

I agree. The Permissive Action Link(PAL), a remote security device for nuclear weapons, was typically used when the state is non-nuclear, yet is a member of NATO. They are secured and deployed by USAF members. But the UK is not one of these states. In fact, you can find evidence that they do not use the PAL on their own weapons, so most likely they do not have them deployed on any of the NATO nuclear weapons stationed in the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United...

Of vague relevance, former undercover police officer Pete Francis says he saw files on Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Dennis Skinner, Joan Ruddock, Peter Hain, Diane Abbott, Bernie Grant, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw and Jeremy Corbyn. He says he personally spied on Jeremy Corbyn. That's Special Branch not MI5 and not contemporary, but still.

Btw I don't think your comment should be downvoted, I don't see anything it shouldn't be OK to say in it.

Well said there where well documented entryist attempts on trade unions.

Its a pity that any nuanced discussions get voted down.

MI5 is not Hovers FBI an organization so dodgy that the CIA in the 1960's where concerned! (this is from classified CIA documents)

Oops I meant declassified docs

distinguishing between political enmity and "subversive" activity

Lots of people would disagree as to whether this distinction was in the right place, especially as "communist infiltrator" is still being thrown around as an accusation decades after the fall of the Soviet Union. While there are a few of the hard left that are a serious handicap to anyone around them (e.g. Tommy Sheridan, George Galloway), they're not especially dangerous.

I fully expect to hear eventually (after decades have gone by) that Corbyn is being spied on. After all, look at Peter Hain: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/may/22/new...

"In 2001, secret government documents published under the 30-Year Rule revealed that Peter Hain - then a Minister for Europe in a Labour government - had been under surveillance in 1970.

Harold Wilson's government had even considered charging him with seditious conspiracy for threatening to disrupt the proposed cricket tour."

Anti-apartheit campaigner and friend of convicted terrorist Nelson Mandela: does he go in the 'political opponent' or 'subversive' box?

"Threat to national security" is a very specific phrase which people should be careful of throwing around, since it's used to legitimise all kinds of action against people.

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