GCHQ also seems to punch way above its weight for such a small country. And yes, the scenario described is exactly what an intelligence officer would think, in order to handle the situation.
Depends what you mean by small country. By land mass certainly, but that didn't stop them amassing the largest empire in history [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire] and it's the 5th largest in terms of GDP [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...]
For me, the GDP is the important part. Hacking, snooping, spying has always been less about national security than it has about power, control, money and greed. The interwebs has just provided new challenges whilst making it easier to collect data on the masses. Terrorism is the new excuse.
This article was also posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959818
It's old news under a new guise, and the collaboration is a long standing one.
I think not. Canada is one of the five and is much much closer. GCHQ is in the news, but much of the cross-boarder legal fiction stuff happens via Canada. Britain controls the international routes two and from europe, but when it comes to domestic spying Canada is the much closer partner.
Additionally, every high level collaboration, according to news reports, involved GCHQ as the chief partner.