MI6 chief’s farewell tells us how an ancient craft continues to evolve

Last week, Sir Richard Moore, chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, gave a public address before handing over the reins of the organisation better known as MI6. By tradition, he’s known as C, as will be his successor, Blaise Metreweli, who will also be the first woman in the job.

Moore didn’t give a mere sign-off speech. It was a comprehensive examination of the issues facing intelligence services globally, including those in Australia.

Reflecting MI6’s international focus, and his own past service as ambassador to Turkey, Moore’s remarks were made while visiting Istanbul. He even revealed that not only does he remain fluent in Turkish, but he also maintains his love for the Besiktas football club.

More importantly, his remarks highlighted the extent to which MI6 has been involved in British statecraft, extending beyond intelligence operations.

In Syria, MI6 had ‘forged a relationship with [Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham] before they toppled Bashar, [and thereby] forged a path for the UK Government to return to the country within weeks.’ And it was while lunching with a newly elected Volodymyr Zelenskyy that C first appreciated the Ukrainian president’s ‘grit and determination’ that would then come to the fore in February 2022. Indeed, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw MI6, other British agencies and US partners deploy secrets for strategic effect through ‘declassifying intelligence that exposed Putin’s lies and revealed Russia’s military build-up and attack plans’.

Moore was equally candid about internal transformation, including diversifying MI6’s workforce to better ‘reflect the country we’re here to serve’ and modernising the service’s technology base. It’s a fitting legacy as he passes the torch to Metreweli, who previously served as the real-life Q — MI6’s technology chief.

C’s headline announcement captured that fusion of tradition and technology. Silent Courier, a secure online ‘front door’, invites foreign nationals — including disaffected Russians — to communicate clandestinely with MI6, volunteer their services and ‘choose a different future for yourself, for your family and for your country’. Its message targets disenchanted people in authoritarian regimes and is informed by the extraordinary historical value to Western intelligence of ‘walk-ins’ — self-initiating volunteers such as the Cold War agent Oleg Gordievsky.

The strategic logic is clear. Russia’s aggression, China’s assertiveness and Iran’s covert campaigns demand unique, high-quality human intelligence. Digital outreach provides a secure channel for insiders with privileged access to share information that can expose disinformation, pre-empt attacks and strengthen deterrence. Moore’s mantra to ‘be more open to stay secret’ captures the paradox: purposeful transparency can deepen the secrecy that matters.

MI6 is not alone. The Central Intelligence Agency has launched encrypted channels on platforms including Telegram and has publicised detailed instructions — in Russian, Persian and other languages — on how to share secrets safely. Silent Courier builds on that model with a distinctly British appeal to moral agency, but the trans-Atlantic convergence is unmistakable.

C was also clear about how high-tech capabilities, such as Silent Courier, depend on effective and collaborative relationships with the private sector. For example, Britain’s National Security and Investment Fund (NSIF) brings together private sector research and development with national security customers.

The hallmark of this C has been his openness, and this speech was characteristic. Moore spoke persuasively and in detail about why he had taken a hitherto novel approach for the head of a secret intelligence service and about its deliberate purpose. He had ‘spoken more often and more openly’, in a ‘dialogue with the British people’, aware that MI6 needed to build and sustain empowering relationships outside of Whitehall.

There is much that is unique about the British leveraging of intelligence. MI6 has its own cultural power internationally, beyond its operations. Relatedly, C also used the opportunity to share British perspectives with a global audience on such issues as Ukraine, Russia and Gaza.

Australian intelligence might not have the same cultural cache, but it has similar capabilities and insights. And the lessons offered in C’s farewell are relevant to us.

Australia similarly wields intelligence diplomacy. Strategic declassification of intelligence was canvassed by the 2024 Independent Intelligence Review (IIR). Australian agencies are also grappling with the challenge of workforce change and making the best use of a nation’s worth of talent. And Australia’s spies have also, on occasion, pitched publicly to the disenchanted in foreign regimes.

The spycraft-technology interface matters to us, too, even if the absence of an antipodean HM Government Communications Centre means that the direct relationship between the national intelligence community (NIC) and the private sector is even more vital. The kudos that C extended to the NSSIF illuminates the IIR’s recommendation to the government to explore setting up an equivalent here.

But holding back the NIC is a more constrained approach to the transparency that C embodied. For example, compare his forthrightness on global issues, especially on Russia, China and the related link between Indo-Pacific security and Ukraine, to the Australian government’s typically self-limiting approach to attribution of hostile intelligence actions.

Here’s hoping the same forward-leaning approach is carried on by the new C and that the Australian government sees value in its spymasters — indeed, its national security officials broadly — following suit in describing the world as it is, and how Australia can best chart its way forward.

This article first appeared in The Strategist.