UK spying strains Europe relations: C. Walker

Press TV has conducted an interview with Christopher Walker, political commentator from London, about the issue of Britain, which is blocking a Europe-wide agreement on internet freedom by objecting a probe and scrutiny on spying that could uncover the depth of British involvement in espionage.

- What do you see as the reason behind this move by the GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) and the British government? Is this because as was hinted in various reports that it’s afraid of the depth and amount of its own spying activities is going to come to light?

- Yes I think that must be the main reason.

Don’t forget it follows the discovery of a British ‘spy nest’, as it were, on the roof of an embassy in Germany in which the GCHQ was monitoring many political calls and this has infuriated the Germans.

It has immediately led to speculation that if the British can go that far in Germany, what else are they up to?

GCHQ remains a very secretive body with huge links with the Americans. There is also a strong feeling that GCHQ is closely linked with the National Security Agency (NSA) in America and that in a way they’ve been doing the same sort of spying job around the world and exchanging private information.

There is something called the ‘Five Eyes’ club, which are English speaking nations: the US, Britain, Australia, Canada and one other that have a secret deal going back to the second world war almost. They will not spy on each other, but that means nothing to stop Britain from spying on other countries in Europe.

- You did mention an interesting point there - the partnership between the US, the UK and you mentioned Canada, Australia. This partnership is against the rest of Europe.

Do you think these recent revelations and now this move by Britain to block this probe is going to make it even more isolated than it was after those revelations; [particularly] now that there is a lot of anger among European countries on why the United Kingdom did this with partnership with the US and now why it’s blocking a probe into it?

- Yes. it is increasing strains, which of course are already fairly intense because Britain is planning a referendum if the Tory Party wins the 2015 election as to whether the country will stay in Europe.

So this has increased the feeling among many of the 20 ATU members that Britain is really, as it were, only a half-time partner or even more distrustful than that.

Don’t forget that in European diplomatic history, Britain has always been known... as perfidious Albion, the country that does things that it doesn’t tell you about.