Could Scotland go it alone in a world of espionage? Former spymaster gives his view

Omand is Scottish. He grew up in Glasgow, aced his exams, and went to Cambridge where he graduated with a double first before joining GCHQ – Government Communications Headquarters – the UK’s top-secret listening post. Omand later became GCHQ director, making him one of Britain’s most powerful spies. He spoke to The Herald on Sunday on the eve of the publication of his new book, How Spies Think.

“You have to keep asking, ‘are we going to be better off in defence and security terms as a result of independence’ and the answer to that is no, I can’t see how you can be better off,” he says. Post-independence the key would be “minimising the loss of security”.

He adds: “I think independence does pose a significant risk – that’s not to say ways can’t be found to manage that risk – but that would require significant adjustment to what I read as being the position of the Scottish National Party, namely its anti-nuclear stance, and the magical thinking about the level of security that would be enjoyed in an independent Scotland without significant assistance from England.”

Omand has had one of the most distinguished careers in espionage of any British intelligence officer. After running GCHQ, he became the UK’s first Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator, where he oversaw Britain’s spying agencies and developed CONTEST, the UK’s current counter-terrorism strategy.

Some small nations do have good intelligence agencies, he says, but “they’re constrained by size”. Intelligence agencies in an independent Scotland would be dependent on London, Omand believes. “If you don’t have the active support of a ‘big brother’ you’re not going to get very far.”

Scottish intelligence and security agencies would have to deal with international terror, organised crime – like drug cartels, people trafficking and child sex rings – as well as threats from hostile states. “For a very small country, which Scotland would be, to afford that is problematic,” Omand says.

However, he doesn’t doubt that Scotland has the talent to train its own spies. “There are plenty of very clever people in Scotland, the Scottish education system is still one to be very proud of, but that [training intelligence officers] would take time so a lot would depend on the terms of the divorce.”

This is a key issue for Omand – if things got messy between London and Edinburgh after a successful Yes vote, the security of both nations could suffer. “Would the Government [in London],” he asks, “be prepared to support an independent Scotland in the way in which it would really need to be supported for really quite a large number of years in order to ensure the right level of security?”

He says the same concerns apply not just to intelligence but also policing. Scotland’s police, Omand points out, “benefit from a lot of information which is provided by their English neighbour … Could Scotland take over the role of the National Crime Agency?” The NCA leads on fighting serious and organised crime across the UK.

“With time,” he says, replying to his own question, “the answer is ‘yes’. Would it be more effective? No, I don’t think it would be. Would it in turn cause problems for England if the level of security being maintained north of the Border was different in significant ways? Yes … For a responsible government, you can’t opt out of security, it’s the primary duty.”

On the issue of security in an independent Scotland, he says: “Edinburgh so far hasn’t had much experience in this area, so you’re talking about creating [an intelligence and security] community from scratch – obviously, you can’t say it’s impossible but it would be quite expensive and would require active support from England.”

He doesn’t believe “any sensible English government would threaten no co-operation because it’s in England’s interest to have a secure neighbour to the north, but just think about the practical difficulties – that’s why having a common security area that would cover what is today the UK would make every kind of sense, and that might be quite tricky to negotiate immediately after a messy divorce”.

Although Omand believes intelligence services in an independent Scotland would be overshadowed by their English counterparts, “all logic would say that you want to continue to work as closely as possible”. That desire to co-operate could become strained, though.

England spying on Scotland?

There would come a point, Omand says, where England would feel “yes, we’re very, very close to these people, they’re our friends, they’re our kith and kin, but actually they’re now a foreign country and they’ve different national interests from the ones we have, and even with the closest allies you have to bear in mind that they don’t necessarily look at the world with the same objectives we have”.

“Deep down,” he says, “both sides would know that they have to co-operate.” He cites cross-border drug trafficking as just one area which would demand collaboration.

However, he says: “There would be some hard feelings because of the result [of a Yes vote] and a lot would depend on the terms of the settlement which would in turn depend on the prospectus that was put in front of the Scottish people.”

The risk of England spying on Scotland “would all depend on the terms of the settlement, and the extent to which there was residual deep bad feeling about the way the campaign had been run and the terms that emerged. Key to it would be: would there be well-substantiated fears in London that Edinburgh would be taking decisions that would directly harm the security of the citizens of England – which they might not intend as harm but would be decisions which could inadvertently have knock-on effects”.

Omand goes on: “If you had a very open and reasonably trusting relationship, that’s not a problem – but if it looked like things were being done where London would say ‘we must know what’s going on north of the Border’ then you may have that [spying], and the same would be true the other way round. So, you don’t normally need to spy on your friends as you can just ask them a question and be reasonably certain that they’ll give you a truthful answer. If we’re still friends then it [spying] isn’t an issue.”

Hostile Russia, worried America

Other countries would be more likely to spy on Scotland. “Just take Nato membership,” Omand says. “Nato allies are going to be asking some very searching questions, particularly in Washington, but also in Paris and Berlin, about what is this new Scotland up to – can we rely on it, will it make a contribution to its own security, is it going to be a freeloader that will simply expect us to provide … or will it actually take steps which would be regarded as directly undermining Nato security?”

Omand worries about the security threats which he believes separation would pose to both Scotland and England. “There’s big differences to the period of the previous Scottish referendum,” Omand says, “where we can now see that Russia is engaged in meddling in Western democracies very directly … trying to set one part of the country against another.” He points both to America, and Germany where the Kremlin covertly backed both left and right groups “so they become increasingly antagonistic to each other” in order to undermine Berlin.

“It’s clearly in their interests to meddle,” Omand says of Russia and a second referendum, “because it creates difficulties for the UK … You can be sure there would be attempts to interfere with a Scottish referendum campaign, and you’d find fake websites, exaggerations of the positions of both sides, all the techniques which have now become familiar.”

He adds: “The more they interfere with us and the more harm we suffer the better they feel. It’s not necessarily that they’ve aggressive intent to invade Scotland – that’s not the threat.” The real threat, Omand believes, is that “the intelligence and security apparatus you need to keep yourself safe from that kind of interference, and cyber interference, is quite a significant one … the best approach at the moment is the UK is big enough to have a significant capability of its own”.

There’s “obviously a risk” to any new nation from hostile states, Omand says. “Scotland would be vulnerable.”

Yespionage

Omand insists the UK has never spied on the Yes movement – but it would if foreign powers tried to interfere in a referendum. “The 1989 Security Act is clear in terms of what the remit of the security services cover and what it doesn’t cover. So if there was evidence of a foreign state interfering in the referendum or trying to subvert the movement then that’s no different from a foreign state attempting to subvert any political movement in the UK – that’s subversion and that would be covered. But the fact that democratically elected MSPs have a particular view, that’s off limits, that’s not something that in itself creates subversion. But if it looked like they were being manipulated, then of course that would be a legitimate target.”

Cost

The costs of setting up a functioning intelligence service – let alone armed forces – would be considerable, he warns. “There would have to be some very careful planning of what was affordable. It wouldn’t be the top priority, I suspect, for politicians who had just won a referendum.”

It’s impossible to even guesstimate the cost, Omand says. “How long is a piece of string? What capability does a new Scotland feel it needs and what sort of transition period do we have when essentially the load is still being taken by big brother to the south?

“It’s a considerable cost, but one that will be less than trying to construct Scottish armed forces that are genuine armed forces and not just for show.”

Military

On the issue of the armed forces, Omand says: “What you can’t do is simply take the Scottish regiments and say ‘there’s the Scottish army’.” An army, he says, needs logistics, supplies, equipment – tanks and infantry don’t equal a functioning military. “The same is true of the navy,” he says, “you can’t just hand over the ship – where are the spare parts?”

Rosyth is an admirable naval base, Omand says, “but it’s not set up to look after a Scottish navy, so again you’ve got a serious investment programme … it gets even more difficult with air power. You’ve got [RAF] Lossiemouth but you’re going to have to construct some form of air interception as well as surveillance capability if you’re going to be a proper small nation.”

Nato and Trident

The issues of Nato, Trident and EU membership are inextricably linked, Omand warns – and the idea of joining the EU and Nato and getting rid of nuclear bombs on the Clyde is, Omand believes, incompatible.

“I’m sure there’s a majority of EU states which would say … on the security front, ‘we’d like you in Nato too’, and that comes with a price as Scotland would be expected to pay its reasonable share of defending its very critical geographical position in the north Atlantic.” Nato membership carries a 2% of GDP price tag.

Nato membership, Omand says, “takes you to the very awkward question of Coulport and Faslane [the Clyde naval bases] and the nuclear deterrent”. Nato says an independent Scotland would have to reapply to join the alliance. The SNP ditched its opposition to Nato in 2012. However, Nato would oppose any instability relating to the UK’s nuclear deterrent, such as the removal of Trident from the Clyde.

The nuclear issue would likely become a huge negotiating point after a Yes vote. The SNP’s commitment to removing Trident, says Omand, “makes Nato membership problematic and poses an acute problem for England and the national nuclear deterrent. So to reprovision that elsewhere would be lengthy and extremely costly, and I can’t see the English taxpayer being very comfortable about being told ‘well you have to meet the cost’.”

Omand says one way of resolving this political dilemma would be “a long lease on Faslane and Coulport [by England from Scotland] and you swallow your non-nuclear instincts … I have no answers to any of these problems, all I can point out is that it’s difficult and it’s expensive and I think I and my fellow Scots deserve to have the proposition fairly set out before any talk of a further referendum. There’s a risk of falling into magical thinking as you can’t actually say how any of this would be done – you’re just kind of assuming that somehow it will be.”

Small-scale spying

Omand points to Denmark as a small nation with successful intelligence services. However, Denmark, he explained, often depends on the spying agencies of bigger countries. He cited the case of the KGB’s Oleg Gordievsky, who was based in Copenhagen and grew disenchanted with the Soviets. The Danes discovered Gordievsky, who had eventually headed the KGB section of the Soviet embassy in London, was ripe for recruiting. “The Danish service said ‘this is too big for us’ and handed the case to MI6,” Omand said. It was a “major coup” but the case showed that “a small service such as the Danish … couldn’t do it themselves”.

Other small countries like Finland, Norway and the Netherlands, he notes, invest heavily in intelligence due to the threat from Russia because they want to make clear “they’re no pushover”.

A spy's life

Born in 1947, Omand grew up in a comfortable middle-class home in Anniesland. His father ran a Glasgow ad agency, and his aunt worked for British intelligence during the war at Bletchley Park. However, because her work had to remain secret, Omand didn’t discover her role until 1996 when his appointment as GCHQ director became public. She told him: “Oh, I think I can tell you now where I spent the war.”

Omand’s new book, How Spies Think, is a “plea for rationality in an irrational world”. He fears democracy is at risk “if we don’t look after it”, and worries that the internet could create “a kind of instant mob rule”.

“I started to think about writing the book,” he says, “after the Brexit referendum and the [2016] US presidential vote, and the way the issues were being reflected on social media which made me rather cross.”

We need rational analysis to support decision-making, he says. Critical thinking, a good education, and the enquiring spirit of the Scottish Enlightenment need to be cherished. The book “opposes what we see every day, which is a rising tide of half truths and distortion”.

“Social media makes it possible to widen divisions in society and set us at each other’s throats in a way that previously the media didn’t and couldn’t do … Most of your information, if you’re under 30, is coming from social media and that has an in-built tendency to split people apart.”

Omand was Director of GCHQ from 1996 to 1997. In 2002 he became the UK’s first Security and Intelligence Co-ordinator. He served in this post until 2005, in which capacity he oversaw all of the UK’s intelligence agencies, and was responsible for national counter terrorism strategy and ‘homeland security’. He also served for seven years on the Joint Intelligence Committee.