What makes the new female head of MI6’s in-tray so dangerous

Blaise Metreweli takes over at a dangerous time when Britain’s allies are among its biggest problems, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley

The first woman appointed to the role of “C” as head of the Secret Intelligence Service will be taking over when two of Britain’s most important relationships in espionage are strained to breaking point.

And she’ll be leading a technological race the UK cannot afford to lose.

Blaise Metreweli, 47, a Cambridge University graduate of social anthropology, has been running department Q in MI6. Her appointment to the top job, where she will be expected to write only in the traditional green ink of the chief, will involve steering its use of radical new technology.

As Q, the title adopted by MI6 in homage to the fictional Q in James Bond movies, she presided over the development of gadgets, secret communications, bugs, weapons and disguises. But also artificial intelligence and the wider digital race for dominance.

Blaise Metreweli, 47, a Cambridge University graduate of social anthropology, has been running department Q in MI6 (MI6)

Former MI6 chief Sir Alex Younger told The Independent that he was delighted Metreweli had been given the top job.

“She served as Q and knows how to keep a humint [human intelligence] service at the cutting edge in a digital world,” he said.

“This latter point is key. Only a few humint services will be left standing in the wind of digitalisation. This appointment makes it even more likely that MI6 will be one of them.”

Other intelligence sources have spoken to The Independent about the difficulties of setting up a credible profile or “legend” for officers working undercover in the digital age. Social media profiles and other digital footprints have to go back for years, often a lifetime. The creation of a real-world spy requires a vast amount of resources from the virtual world.

“If you don’t show up on Google or Twitter, in cookies and Amazon payments you probably don’t exist and that’s a problem for people we’re investing,” one officer said.

Like many top MI6 officers, Ms Metreweli served for years in the Middle East, which has been the crucible of intelligence operations for most of her career during the so-called “war on terror”.

Former MI6 chief Sir Alex Younger (The Independent)

But, especially since 2022, the biggest single threat to the UK, and her allies, has been Russia. Vladimir Putin has been explicit in his intent to try to regain Russian control over much of Eastern Europe lost to democracy at the end of the Cold War.

Throughout her career, the incoming C would have assumed that the CIA was Britain’s closest ally. And that the relationship between Vauxhall Bridge and Langley, Virginia, was among the strongest threads of the tapestry of the Nato alliance.

But the tapestry is coming apart. The first signs of unravelling came during Donald Trump’s first term as president when it became clear, after he blurted state secrets to the Russian foreign minister, that he could not be trusted.

That concern has intensified after he was found to have stored classified documents in the bathrooms of his home in Florida after leaving office.

And now the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that links the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand and Australia has come close to collapse because of his open support for Russia over Ukraine.

Donald Trump arrives at the G7 leaders’ summit at the Rocky Mountain resort town of Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada (Reuters)

His top appointments have been incontinent with top secret material and downright threatening to longstanding US allies. They have used personal phones in “eyes only” (the highest level) of secret communications over live battle plans in Yemen, and threatened to invade Greenland, part of Nato-member Denmark.

The new C will need to protect the vital relationships with Langley, and the US National Intelligence Agency, which along with GCHQ is the West’s most important eavesdropping organisation, while simultaneously and invisibly making sure that Trump and the people he’s put in charge of US intelligence don’t get the best… intelligence.

Israel is equally problematic. Few, if anyone, in MI6 is sympathetic to the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the taking of Palestinian land by Israelis in the occupied West Bank. They see it as a moral failure and as a danger to Western interests in being a driver for Islamic terror.

But they have also long and close relationships with Israel’s foreign intelligence service. Mossad, which like its domestic equivalent Shin Bet, often gives advice that Israel’s right-wing government does not welcome for its nuance or recognition that Israel’s future depends on diplomacy, not military might.

The UK sees Israel as the leading “ally” on intelligence when it comes to Iran, but as a strategic liability when it comes to its treatment of Palestinians.

Ms Metreweli will have to keep the relationship alive without endorsing what the International Criminal Court has said may be war crimes by Israel.

Sir Alex added: “I think Blaise is an excellent choice (from a strong bench). She has huge operational credibility and deep case officer experience, particularly in the Middle East, with excellent Arabic. She’s widely respected inside the service and out.”

It’s the outside relationships that will now count most.