INTERNATIONAL
293. Recent Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism (ERWT) incidents overseas, such as the attacks in Christchurch and El Paso, mean the issue is high on the agenda of the UK's closest counter-terrorism partners. MI5, Counter Terrorism Policing (CTP) and GCHQ advised that they seek to work with international partners to increase and systematise data-sharing (in support of efforts such as ***) and to act in a joined-up way to combat right-wing material online and *** those communication service providers (CSPs) favoured by Extreme Right-Wing (XRW) actors. (For example, CTP's response to the emergence of National Action involved a collective effort with a number of countries to disrupt the spread of associated or similar groups. This included groups in Norway, the USA and Australia.)
Closer co-operation: International partners
294. MI5, CTP and GCHQ are working with international intelligence partners to share learning about the XRW threat. The priority has been to:
- gain an understanding of how the threat is manifesting in other countries;
- understand how partners are dealing with the threat; and
- where appropriate, agree international strategies to develop a strategic response to what is a new and growing threat.
295. In July 2020, MI5 took part in a virtual meeting of the *** working group on ERWT and left-wing, anarchist and single-issue terrorism (LASIT). MI5 told the Committee that it is apparent that experience of ERWT and LASIT varies—for example, in the United States, Article 1 of the Bill of Rights (Freedom of Speech) legitimises some activity that would be considered criminal in the UK—however, they say that:
broadly speaking engagement has been productive and forward-leaning. In practice engagement has involved separate conferences [with international partners]; a number of bilateral exchanges with close intelligence partners (including, but not limited to, ***); and the sharing of intelligence assessments to ensure we build a common understanding and identify where links between [extreme] right-wing terrorists in different countries (or online) may be driving the threat.[1]
***—Liaison Collaboration[2]
296. Since 2019, MI5 has been part of an ERWT-focused liaison working group (codenamed ***), in which domestic security, police and signals intelligence (SIGINT) organisations from the UK and liaison partners collaborate to share experiences in countering the ERWT threat and to work to understand each other's approaches and thresholds. We are told that the liaison group has enabled greater cross-partner co-operation on UK Intelligence Community (UKIC) ERWT investigations with an international focus and enabled joint operational responses
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