The Times of London reported this month that British internal security agency MI5 might become involved in efforts to curtail acts of animal rights extremism in the UK.
According to the Times,
Senior officers from the Security Service are consulting the Home Office about the need for intelligence-gathering to counter the threat to pharmaceutical companies.
The Times reports that MI5 had previously considered and ultimately rejected becoming directly involved in investigating animal rights groups, but the increasing level of violence and other acts of extremism — along with pharmaceutical companies’ recent threats to pull new investments from Great Britain — have led the government to reconsider whether MI5 should be used.
According to The Times, “The sources said that a final decision would depend on whether the extremists were judged to have crossed into a more dangerous arena. . . . If MI5 becomes involved, the agency would work with the new National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, formed by chief constables this year and based at Cambridgeshire Police headquarters, which has been policing the demonstrations against Huntingdon Life Sciences and the threats against Cambridge University’s now abandoned plan for a primate laboratory.”
Source:
MI5 agents to infiltrate animal rights terror groups. Michael Evans, Patrick Hosking and Stewart Tendler, Times of London, September 10, 2004.