Pursue strand
194. The objectives of the Pursue strand of CONTEST are to:
- Detect and understand terrorist activity
- Investigate terrorist activity
- Disrupt terrorist investigations, including through prosecutions.[1]
This work is primarily conducted by MI5, with CTP holding the executive action role, and oversight conducted by this Committee. Pursue activity is covered in the next chapter.
Working with advocacy groups
195. There are a number of advocacy groups involved in campaigning against racism and fascism. Nick Lowles, Chief Executive of Hope Not Hate, told the Committee that Hope Not Hate has informants inside a number of these Far-Right organisations, although when asked if it also followed that this meant his group had built links with the police he replied that "we don't have a particularly great relationship [with the police]", noting that "with third party groups like ourselves and others, when they get hold of information it's not that easy to put information into the system". He pointed to the example of:
the Rosie Cooper [MP] plot where we had someone inside National Action after it was proscribed. That person learnt of a plot to kill a Labour MP which was days away from happening. Obviously it was our duty and we've got rules internally, and with our Board and with the Charity Commission and everything, we have these rules, but we had to go to the police with that, knowing that first of all someone was going to have to come out and give evidence but also and this is the situation with our relationship with the authorities. So Counter Terrorism then threatened to arrest us because we initially wouldn't hand over the name of the person until we had an agreement he wouldn't be prosecuted.[2]
196. The Director General of MI5 advised that they might ***:
***.[3]
When we asked the Home Secretary how often she met with advocacy groups, she said that whilst she herself did not: "we [the Home Office] do as an organisation".[4]
N. Advocacy groups can play an important role, however we recognise that MI5 and Counter Terrorism Policing may be constrained in the way in which they are able to interact with them at an operational level, and we would encourage the Home Office to develop constructive relationships at a strategic level instead.
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