New Delhi: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced Sunday that Blaise Metreweli will be the next head of UK’s Secret Intelligence Service or MI6. She is set to be the first woman to hold the post since agency’s founding in 1909.
As is the norm, the only publicly identified official in the MI6 is its chief who is commonly referred to as ‘C’.
Metreweli, of Georgian descent, is a proficient Arabic speaker and has previously held senior positions in the MI5, UK’s security service. She will assume office as the 18th chief of M16, taking over from Richard Moore, who held the job for five years (2020-2025). The tenure of Metreweli will commence from 1 October.
The top job at M16 was open to applicants from other intelligence agencies, the civil
service, diplomatic service and the armed forces or police of Britain.
BBC reported that Metreweli was “proud and honoured” to have been asked to lead the famed spy agency. “With a wealth of experience from across our national security community, Blaise is the ideal candidate to lead MI6 into the future,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy, to whom the M16 chief will report, was quoted as saying.
Metreweli has been in the thick of things since 1999 as a career intelligence officer. She studied anthropology at Pembroke College, a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, and has spent most of her career in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe.
In an interview to the Telegraph in 2021, when Metreweli was serving in MI5 as “Director K”, she termed the threats to national security in the UK as “diverse”.
“The threats we are looking at primarily exist around protecting government, protecting secrets, protecting our people—so counter-assassination—protecting our economy, sensitive technology and critical knowledge,” she had said in the interview as Director K.
All about MI6
The MI6, formally known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), is tasked with analysing intelligence to support national security, counter hostile states and protect British interests.
It was founded in 1909 by Mansfield Cumming, first chief known as ‘C’, to counter German espionage activities prior to World War I. It is headquartered in London, on the south bank of the Thames, and is funded by the UK government, which also funds the MI5 and Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ (cyber-intelligence).
The exact extent of funding for MI6 remains classified, but the overall single intelligence account budget does get published, and was reported as £3.5 billion for 2022-23. It is estimated that 20-25 percent of the budget would go to the MI6.
‘C’ in the SIS reports to the foreign secretary and is also part of the joint intelligence committee, along with senior government officials. The MI6 chief receives intelligence reports and analyses ongoing developments, besides advising the PM on matters of national and international interest.
The tradition of usage of the alphabet for the chief’s post goes back to the first M16 chief Cumming, who always signed his letters as ‘C’ in green ink.
Since Metreweli’s appointment, social media users have been drawing comparisons between the role played by Judi Dench in the James Bond movies, as M16 chief ‘M’, and the post that Metreweli will now take up.
Dench’s portrayal of ‘M’ in the films was itself inspired by Stella Rimington, the first woman chief of MI5.
Dedipya Agarwal is an intern who graduated from ThePrint School of Journalism.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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