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MI5 spying on dissident Labour MP in latest fiasco to hit our 'benevolent' spooks

• Are British Intelligence officers out of control?

Labour MP Andrew MacKinlay....... Jonathan Evans, DG of MI5: In the defence of their realm

Dissident Labour MP, Andrew Mackinlay has become the subject or target of MI5's intrusive surveillance and has made an issue about the matter before Parliament at the height of the 42 day detention debate. Shame no one was around to see his vitriolic speech as he laid into the Security 'Service' because no journalists were in the gallery of the House of Commons and MPs had 'better things to do.

But they missed quite a spectacle as Mr Mackinlay, famous for his grilling of Dr David Kelly, showed his mettle as a courageous parliamentarian and a devoted democrat as he returned to the subject of MI5 and its 'interest' in him, despite the unwritten but understood provisions of the Wilson Doctrine....

During Justice Questions a deeply vexed Mr Mackinlay asked the Government to 'protect' MPs from "interference from the Executive, including MI5". Somehow and whatever gave him this idea, he hoped that tame ministers would reinforce rules which protect MPs from interference from outside - from 'people' who would lean on and mislead Parliament before committees'.

Having made his demand with characteristic steel Mr Mackinlay took his seat and projected the very image of defiance, his chin dropped in a gesture of bold resistance. In common with Norman Baker MP, he did not just project his defiance to the House, he loosed it far and wide, particularly in the direction of the shadowy watchers - the spooks brought out of the shadows momentarily by a glimmer of light. Does Parliament get any better than this?

And arguably the most surprising aspect about his 'public' outrage is the fact that MPs are normally extremely lame about mentioning MI5 or MI6... all those dirty secrets. But it turns out that Mr Mackinlay recently made a longer speech in the Commons about his 'dealings' with MI5.

The turbulent speech was made around lunchtime on Thursday, May 22, the day the House broke for the Whitsun recess. The Hansard account of that afternoon shows that Mr Mackinlay said that on occasion he meets a diplomat from Russia's London Embassy. As a senior member of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee he finds such meetings useful and the meetings always occur in the Palace of Westminster. There is no secret plotting or treachery going on, just two politically-minded men trying to iron out the differences of their respective nations.

But the New Labour regime has never been hot on freedom, privacy and independence and so recently Mr Mackinlay was hauled in by a 'minister' who said, 'I've been approached by you know who, who tells me that you're meeting a person from the Russian embassy'. Without any doubt Mr Mackinlay was being warned off, threatened indirectly by the sinister forces of shadow government through a lackey goverment 'minister'.

Mr Mackinlay explains that he found this conversation with the minister 'menacing'. [Anyone who has had 'dealings' with MI5 will not be surprised in the slightest.] And he added: 'It means that the security and intelligence services are monitoring not only the people who come into this building but the Hon Members whom they meet and presumably what is discussed. Is this not an affront to Parliament?'

Mr Mackinlay's allegations surely require that sharp questions be put, immediately, preferably in the public domain, to someone important at MI5. Do the security services recognise the privileged status of elected Members of Parliament? Not bloody likely! Do they spy on MPs in the Palace of Westminster? Or do our 'benevolent' spooks our 'protectors' from terrorism, think that they, unelected and virtually out of control, occupy some higher position which makes them immune from any legal and moral restraint?

Once upon a time there was something called the Wilson Doctrine which forbids MPs' telephones being tapped. Should that doctrine now be extended to MPs' private meetings?

It is clear that Mr MacKinlay has been a constant and irritating thorn in the side of elective dictactorship and as such he deserves to be listened to - by the public, not by some lurking, deviant spook with a shotgun microphone. If MI5 has been monitoring his conversations, let alone 'misleading' parliamentary committees [perish the thought] we the public need to know!

www.andrewmackinlay.co.uk

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