It’s the Cubans. They’re at it again. They’re making people dizzy with their ultra-secret audio weapon. What are their options though? It’s Able Archer all over, America is about to attack. It just needs to take out this chemical weapons plant in Sudan first – they’re making weapons of mass destruction that can be launched in 45 minutes. Someone get Robert Hanssen on the phone.
The good news is that Hawaii is safe, the Twin Towers are untouchable, and all is well with the Shah of Iran. Have we got that all cleared up then? Good-oh.
I tell you all this because I take national security seriously, because it is serious. A nation that isn’t alert to threats to its wellbeing that can be identified in the world around it is an idiot. You can’t wait for bad things to happen. You have to prepare.
The point (if you haven’t picked this up) is that there is a monumental difference between taking national security seriously and believing what the spooks say. The first paragraph above cites five examples of where security services utterly misunderstood what was actually happening and started making things up that weren’t true. The second lists three examples of massive, knowable events that the security services totally missed.
I tell you all this because I wish to try to persuade you that there is a more sophisticated position that can be taken which lies somewhere between ‘stop these Chinese bastards boosting the Scottish economy’ and ‘quick, hand Beijing the nuclear codes’. That you don’t take at face value a single claim by security forces does not mean that you are not taking security seriously.
That was my overwhelming feeling when I heard that the UK Government had blocked a wind turbine manufacturer from setting up a factory in the north of Scotland, a factory which would have made advanced, ultra-efficient wind turbines and create 1,500 jobs in the process.
This development was blocked by the UK Government via the magic words ‘national security’. As I have argued before, no two words are more prone to dropping the IQ of a UK politician or political commentator faster than the words ‘national security’. All curiosity goes out the window when those words are spoken.
The crucial thing about national security is that it is impossible to challenge
The crucial thing about national security is that it is impossible to challenge. It is immune to public scrutiny. We have been given no reason why this plant would be a national security risk. I can see only a limited range of possibilities.
It makes no sense that it would be the product being made that is the risk. We buy almost all our wind turbines from China anyway, and if they were being made here we’d have more regulatory control over them, not less. In product terms, I can find no possible justification for a ban.
What about process risks? In what way could the process of making these turbines expose us to national security risks? I can think of only a few, and those require quite a broad interpretation of the definition of national security. I do not believe they could secretly convert to making attack drones or something. A plant employing 1,500 people is a terrible place to do secret stuff at a large scale.
What about small-scale stuff? For example, could they bypass sanctions, buying products as part of a supply chain here that are banned for export to China, and then forward them on to China? Almost certainly not, because generally sanctions on China include on its companies even if they operate outside China. And other than a handful of advanced chips, what do we have China wants?
So I can only see process issues as being about economics rather than any kind of security threat in the sense I suspect most people imagine it. Chinese firms are known for integrated supply chains and I can see how this might be seen to undermine the domestic economy – in theory at least (we don’t have a phenomenal amount of domestic manufacturing industry so it doesn’t seem a very clear and present danger).
So is it about presence? Is it the sheer existence of a power base for a Chinese entity in the UK that is the problem? Well if so you’d imagine that China’s new big super-embassy in London would be the bigger threat, and that just got waved through by the security services. The north of Scotland doesn’t strike me as prime spy territory – what are they going to spy on exactly?
Plus the scale of Chinese presence in and ownership of the UK economy is very substantial indeed. Why suddenly is this single initiative causing such a freak-out? The Chinese own ten per cent of Heathrow and the entire south of England’s electricity grid. And those are fine but not a factory making renewables infrastructure? I’m sceptical.
The most persuasive arguments I can come up with are presence arguments, and they’re not really very strong at all. And unless we’re going to chase everyone who is Chinese out the country then there are lots and lots of ways to gain a presence.
I don’t see petty geopolitics as more important than the economic wellbeing of the Highlands of Scotland
This leaves only one credible issue that I can see, and that is ‘interfering with international relations’. This is is when national security eats its own tail. A certain relationship is important to us and we can’t afford it to be damaged so if this other relationship damages it then that is a threat to the relationship we need so is a national security threat. This is what I suspect they’re really talking about.
Which is to say if I was taking a bet I’d bet that ‘the security threat’ is that Trump will throw an almighty temper tantrum if he hears the words ‘wind turbine factory’, ‘Chinese’ and ‘Scotland’ in the same sentence. That tracks. That makes sense. I can see that. It’s just that it’s garbage.
You know how I know this is all rubbish? Because you know what is a black hole of national security idiocy? Giving Palantir control over all our data. Palantir is a crusading threat to world peace and justice led by a crypto-fascist whose views on the world are utterly mental. He thinks he’s in a personal battle with The Antichrist. When the moment comes, Palantir would subjugate Britain on behalf of a hostile America and it wouldn’t blink before doing it.
Meanwhile, let me list you some actual security threats. One; Donald Trump. Two; Britain’s balance of payment crisis which leaves us perpetually exposed to global economic shocks. Three: reliance on imported energy. Four; climate change. Five; domestic unrest rising from lack of sufficient economic opportunities for citizens.
Those are real. I didn’t make those up in my head the way that the security services repeatedly do. I am also happy to explain them out loud and be challenged on it, unlike spooks who just tap the side of their nose and nod knowingly. None of my warnings need to be explained to make sense.
I am no fan of authoritarian regimes – Beijing or (increasingly) Washington. I would engage cautiously with either. But I don’t see petty geopolitics as more important than the economic wellbeing of the Highlands of Scotland. I don’t think of China as a friend but rather part-competitor, part-highly competent partner. Within that frame I refuse to believe there is no way a Chinese company could manufacture wind turbines in Scotland without it posing some kind of threat to us.
The thing about people telling you that there is something really important but that it’s secret and you just need to take their word for that is that there is always a chance they’re neither lying or exaggerating. Perhaps there’s something I don’t know. But I can’t see anything to persuade me that this is the case in this instance from any information that I can glean.
Douglas Alexander went on the attack, with patronising crap about the rest of us not understanding things his big mind can understand. Well I try to at least attempt a bit more sophistication of thought than anything I’ve seen from Alexander and the process of my deliberations keeps taking me back to the same place.
I don’t believe this is a credible national security threat and because I can see a very good reason why they’d be lying about it (they’re scared of Trump), I’m going to lean heavily in that direction. What I think Douglas Alexander’s red-faced outrage is about is trying to make sure no-one asks him about the harm he has just done the Scottish economy.
Spooks lie. Spooks make mistakes. You’d have thought that after all this time we’d be less gullible. Does it seem odd that a plant making wind turbines is a threat to this nation? It does to me. But if so apparently you should just switch off your brain, almost like it’s been zapped by a secret Cuban ray gun.