EU Referendum


Salisbury: alternatives galore


15/03/2018




With eight days to go before the make-or-break European Council, which could seal the fate of the Brexit negotiations, the issue has virtually disappeared from the media and the politicians have spiralled off into their own fantasy over the Salisbury incident.

As we try to make sense of this, we see the issue attracting its own quota of conspiracy theorists, polluting the pool of information on which we must rely.

But, it is an ironic thought that, when it comes to conspiracy theories, the most pervasive and damaging of these, perhaps of all time, was perpetrated by the UK and US governments. This was the one that had Saddam Hussein's forces equipped with WMD, and the means to deliver them outside Iraq.

Since that time, it would be a very naïve person who would uncritically believe either government on claims relating to WMD and, before sanctioning or accepting the need for any action in respect of them, one would expect to see a high standard of evidence.

In this case, however, Mrs May has not delivered anything like good evidence to support a claim that the Russian state was behind the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Furthermore, the case she has made is flawed, with demonstrable errors.

To assert this is not to "defend Russia", as some have accused me of doing. As to whether there was Russian state involvement is a question I cannot address and have not attempted to answer. But then, that is not the issue.

The key question is whether Mrs May has made in public a credible case for taking action against Russia. Clearly, she has not. Furthermore, she does not claim to rely on information that has yet to be revealed. She has stated her grounds in public and it is on these that she relies.

Latterly, her government asserts that the attack fits into a pattern of behaviour "in which Russia disregards the international rule-based order, undermines the sovereignty and security of countries worldwide and attempts to subvert and discredit Western democratic institutions and processes".

That, however, seems perilously close to a "usual suspects" doctrine, relying entirely on circumstantial evidence. This is not something that a prosecutor would rely on in a court of law. And why, one might ask, when there is so much as stake, should anything less be required of the UK government?

Thus, the most rational thing we seem to have heard yesterday was from Mr Corbyn's spokesman, who said the history of information from UK intelligence agencies was "problematic" and refused to say that the Labour leader accepted the Russian state was at fault.

The spokesman told reporters: "The government has access to information and intelligence on this matter which others don't. However, also there is a history in relation to weapons of mass destruction and intelligence which is problematic, to put it mildly. So, I think the right approach is to seek the evidence to follow international treaties, particularly in relation to prohibitive chemical weapons".

The Labour leader had been given security briefings on the incident. Asked if Mr Corbyn believed Russia was responsible for the attack, the spokesman said Mrs May continued to leave open the possibility that Russia had lost control of the nerve agent.

When it came to Mrs May's statement to the House, however, the prime minister took the view that the Russian government had provided "no credible explanation that could suggest that they lost control of their nerve agent" and "no explanation as to how this agent came to be used in the United Kingdom".

Further, she said, there was no explanation as to why Russia has an undeclared chemical weapons programme in contravention of international law. Instead, she declared, "it has treated the use of a military-grade nerve agent in Europe with sarcasm, contempt and defiance".

What came then was the death of logic. There is extremely good and undisputed evidence to suggest that Novochok was produced at the Uzbek plant, in an area where the Soviet Union lost control in the early 90s. It is also the case that we are dealing with a binary agent, where the precursors can survive lengthy storage.

It is an entirely tenable scenario, therefore, that tradable quantities of the agent have been on the market for decades, accessible to non-state actors without the knowledge or intervention of the Russian (or any other) state.

As an a priori hypothesis, this is just about as credible as any, allowing for any one of a number of diverse nefarious groups to acquire and use the this agent for their own purposes – and inexpertly at that. This did not have the hallmarks of a professional "hit".

Yet, for Mrs May, there was "no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter, and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury, including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey". This, she said, "represents an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom".

What in fact, her statement represented was either a failure of imagination or a determination to close down her options before even starting to evaluate them. And, as an intellectual exercise, if you play this game, it is inevitable that you end up with "no alternative conclusion".

Nevertheless, there are other views as to whether a Russian state attack on the Skripals was credible. From Peter Hitchins, for instance, rehearsed reasons to doubt the obvious explanation, citing Ben Macintyre of The Times.

"Various aspects of the supposed attack on Sergei Skripal are distinctly odd and refuse to fit into an accepted pattern of Russian espionage activity", Macintyre wrote, pointing out that no power has ever before killed a spy that it has swapped. To do so was dangerous, probably fatal, for future exchanges. Why would anyone do such a deal with you, if the exchanged spy was then likely to be killed?

A similar exposition can be found from Séamus Martin in the Irish Times, while Estonian MEP Yana Toom tells us that Russia obviously had no operational interest in Skripal, who was convicted in 2006 and deprived of his military rank, who was pardoned in 2010 and then exchanged. She added:
Even if we presume that the Russians have gone irreversibly crazy - which specifically is what one is attempting to convince Europeans of - and are an embodiment of irrational evil, a demonstrative poisoning with Russian poison a week before the Russian presidential election would be idiocy.
If Special Services wanted to kill someone, they would leave no trace, Toom said. "And a task like this is more than accomplishable in London - it is not the most peaceful city in the world", she noted. "Leaving so many traces was possible only when done for a specific purpose. And I can't think of any that would be beneficial for Russia".

The idea of the Russian Special services descending to that level of incompetence is perhaps beyond imagination, but clearly, it does take precisely that – imagination – to help us through the maze.

That was what was so stunning about yesterday. We saw a House of Commons, braying and bleating, with perilously few exceptions, united in its conviction of Russian guilt. It not only lacked imagination, barring Corbyn, there was hardly a sentient thought to share between the MPs. It wasn't a legislature we were watching. It was a lynch mob.

And this is the body that feels qualified to decide on Brexit. We are living in truly desperate times.