Times MI6 Broke The Rules And Landed In Hot Water

A well-dressed Englishman reports to work at a massive sand and jade building on the banks of the Thames. The postmodern facade seems ostentatious, but the work done within is some of the most clandestine in all of Britain. Once inside, the man reports to his chief's office and receives his mission: a dangerous and powerful madman, a threat to the nation, a far-flung location with little support to offer. As a loyal agent of His Majesty's Secret Service, the man accepts at once. His near-unlimited expense account flies him out in style for yet another adventure for the sake of king and country.

This is the image of MI6 (or SIS — the Secret Intelligence Service) that has loomed large for decades, not only in the United Kingdom, but around the world. Why that image is so popular can be boiled down to just three numbers: 007. Ian Fleming's James Bond, inspired by a motley collection of spies, adventurers, and ornithologists (really), has made the glamorous and exciting archetype of the British secret service an enduring one. The fact that real-life intelligence officers often find the Bond films wildly divorced from their often boring and collaborative reality has made no dent in the popular image.

But if Bond is too famous and showy a model for the work of MI6, his stories also suggest a comforting fantasy about right and wrong. MI6's work is serious, complex, and full of legal and moral compromises. More than once in its long history, the British secret service has been caught in scandal and deception of its own government.

The roots of MI6 go back further than many might expect. The earliest iteration of a secret service for England (and later, Great Britain) was established in 1569. In its current form, the service goes back to 1912 and built its reputation as one of, if not the finest intelligence operation in the world over two world wars. On that foundation, MI6 seemed a key tool for Britain and the West going into the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

But it was early in the Cold War that MI6 saw one of its most embarrassing scandals break. It was revealed in the 1950s that a small group of intelligence operatives, later dubbed the Cambridge "Ring of Five" for their shared past as students at the University of Cambridge, were double agents. Since before World War II, they had been passing information to the Soviets. The identities of the five were gradually revealed over time and included Anthony Blunt, the adviser on art to Queen Elizabeth II.

But the most scandalous was probably Harold "Kim" Philby, who had acted as the head of MI6's anti-Soviet section after World War II and then Britain's chief intelligence officer in the United States. Of all the Cambridge spies, Philby had the most impeccable resume and seemed the most devoted to the Soviet cause once the truth was revealed. He passed both British and American secrets to his Russian handlers and ended up fleeing to the Soviet Union in 1963. He died there 25 years later, becoming one of the many spies who were never brought to justice.

Many Americans have at least a vague awareness of the CIA's role in overthrowing the democratic government of Iran (among other regime change activities over the years). But Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, better known as simply the Shah, didn't just owe his throne to the Americans. MI6 was heavily involved in the restoration of the Iranian monarchy, though the full extent of their involvement went unreported for years.

Britain had strong financial interests in Iran's oil industry, motivating its desire to see a friendlier regime installed in the country. The British ambassador to Tehran claimed that Iranian management of the oil fields would ruin them, and in response to Iran's nationalization of the industry in 1951, Britain withdrew from operations. It appears that, at this point, MI6 began working to bring about regime change, and it was the British secret service that took the lead in fomenting revolution over the CIA. They arguably coerced American involvement by presenting Iran as a front in the fight to maintain communism, rather than a defense of British business interests.

MI6 was well aware that the Shah's return would mean the end of Iranian democracy. It operated without notifying the British ambassador in Tehran, using legal and quasi-legal methods to build an uprising. Iranians were paid, even tortured, to protest the government, and arms were dispersed to revolutionaries. The Western-backed revolution succeeded, but among those in the crowds sponsored by MI6 and the CIA was Ruhollah Khomeini — the man who would eventually take over Iran after the Shah's fall.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's role in supporting — or enabling, to ask some critics — the Bush administration's push for the Iraq War has remained a contentious issue for Britons, with Blair's reputation still in tatters years later. The pretext that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction has been seen as a spectacular failure by both American and British intelligence. What might be forgotten as the run-up to the war recedes into history is that these failures were evident at the time.

In 2003, not long after the war began, it was reported that MI6 was involved in spreading claims about Hussein's weapons programs as early as the 1990s. U.S. intelligence officer Scott Ritter claimed that he had been recruited by MI6 as part of an ongoing mission, "Operation Mass Appeal," to oversell the dangers posed by the Hussein regime to otherwise skeptical populations and governments. Ritter argued that a similar campaign misled the public about the Iraq War, but MI6 officials strongly denied having intentionally misled anyone.

The intelligence failures were the subject of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs' review, colloquially known as the Butler report for its chairman, Lord Butler. It found that warnings had been issued on the quality of British intelligence that went unheeded and that the conclusions drawn from that intelligence were strained. But it also did not support claims that MI6 had deliberately misled anyone about the Hussein regime.

The authority and operational guidelines of MI6 in the modern era are spelled out in the Intelligence Services Act (ISA) of 1994. The act was intentionally broad in scope, and the granted and assumed power it gave the secret service has been a point of contention between Britain and mainland Europe. The continent has always been suspicious of the ISA for its wording regarding economics. The act seems to suggest that, for the sake of the British state, rival European companies could be spied on, with the intelligence passed on to British firms.

Just as concerning is the broad language used for national security. With the cover provided by the ISA, MI6 is known to have spied on foreign diplomats from several nations, despite protections provided for such positions by the 1966 Vienna Convention. The ISA provides extensive protections of its own for British agents and their assets. So long as a secretary of state has provided the necessary authorization, agents are shielded from involvement in any number of crimes, including murder. They've been accused of literally holding James Bond's infamous license to kill, though it is not believed MI6 has directly targeted anyone for assassination since 1961.

The ISA has raised concerns within Britain as well. Informants working in criminal or otherwise hostile enterprises have a certain amount of leash to commit crimes of their own when overseas as part of their work for MI6. But watchdogs have claimed that human resources within the U.K. may have been committing crimes as well.

Concerns that MI6 operatives and informants may have been committing crimes came to a head in 2019, when the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) began investigating the question of whether Britain's spy agencies could order that crimes be committed. As part of the investigation, the court potentially required access to secret documents and rulesets to consider as evidence. Whether they requested the information or not, the IPT had a right to access it. Both MI6 and MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence agency, fought the investigation.

Over a year later, it was revealed that two MI6 officers approached the IPT secretary, Susan Cobb, and attempted to pressure her into concealing some of the classified material, specifically sensitive internal investigations. Cobb wasted little time in firing back at MI6, accusing them of interference with an investigation from an independent judicial body. She received an apology at the time from a senior manager. When the story broke in 2020, MI6 was forced to issue a public apology over the incident.

After reporting uncovered the episode, campaign groups pressured the IPT to open a wider investigation into a potential coordinated attempt at interference from higher up in MI6. But the presiding judge, Lord Justice Singh, accepted the agency's apology and declined to expand the scope of the investigation.

In 2013, British soldier Lee Rigby was killed on the streets of London in the first al-Qaida-inspired attack on British soil in almost a decade; his killers were Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. Rigby had served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and Adebolajo and Adebowale claimed that the murder was in response to Britain and the West's larger foreign policy. Adebolajo's family insisted to the press that the attack was justified and that they expected more to follow. His brother specifically called out the British secret service.

MI6 and MI5 were later implicated in the story of how Adebolajo came to murder a British soldier. In 2020, it was reported by Declassified UK (via Daily Maverick) that Adebolajo had been arrested in Kenya in 2010 for alleged terrorist activity. He was let off at the urging of British intelligence and extradited to the U.K. where, he claimed, MI5 subjected him to abusive interrogation as they tried to make him into an informant on Islamic terrorism.

That Adebolajo may have been on the radar of British intelligence was known by 2014, and two different inquiries investigated the matter. MI6 claimed no knowledge of Adebolajo's movement nor any involvement in his arrest, and the conclusion of the reviews was that any mistakes by British intelligence would not have been enough to prevent Rigby's murder. But Declassified's findings suggested that MI6 had deliberately misled both inquiries, forcing one committee chair, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, to defend his body's conclusions. 

Handling human assets in intelligence can be a difficult juggling act. Valuable informants may be deceitful, unscrupulous, and even dangerous. They may need to continue criminal operations to maintain their cover or as the price of providing information. Agencies like MI6 have to weigh such realities against commitments to justice and the rule of law.

The balls came crashing down on such a case for MI6 in 2020, when it was reported an undercover agent of the service probably engaged in serious criminal acts. MI6 had previously warned the agent that certain acts could not be condoned and would end their relationship. However, the agent was authorized to work for MI6 under section 7 of the Intelligence Services Act, enabling said agent to break any laws without fear of sanction. When it seemed likely that the agent had crossed one of these red lines, MI6 still sought a section 7 renewal from the foreign secretary. In seeking the renewal, MI6 left the likely violation unmentioned.

The omission only came to light due to the work of the Investigatory Powers Commissioner (Ipco), which issued an additional rebuke for similar issues handling agents within the U.K. Whether or not the foreign secretary granted the renewal is unknown. 

In 2017, Jagtar Singh Johal, a Sikh British national and an active blogger, was snatched off the streets of India. Johal had campaigned on behalf of Sikh rights, which have been systematically targeted in India and abroad by the government of Narendra Modi. Johal was held in prison and, according to him and his family, was tortured, electrocuted, and forced to sign blank pieces of paper that were later turned into false confessions. In 2022, he was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and membership of a terrorist group. As of 2024, he has not been brought to trial, and U.N. panels have called for his release. But Johal remains in Indian custody.

British politicians are still calling and working towards Johal's release, but Britain's spy agencies have been implicated in his initial arrest. Reprieve, a human rights organization, claimed (via the BBC) that an Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office (IPCO) report, detailing a tip-off from MI5 to a "liaison partner" via MI6 resulting in the arrest and alleged torture of "the subject of the intelligence," was about Johal. Per the BBC, The Hindustan Times also reported that Johal's arrest came after MI6 provided information to the Punjab police on him.

Johal's brother told the BBC in 2022 that he didn't know of any impropriety by MI6, but the British government has not confirmed or denied any involvement in Johal's arrest. The Foreign Office called for a secret hearing on the matter in 2023, but as of the following year, the accusations remain just that.