ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, as many 64 people with British connections have been identified in thousands of Islamic State recruitment files discovered by Sky News.  Security officials have described the documents as a goldmine.  Well Lord Carlile was the independent reviewer of terror legislation and he’s with me now, a very good morning to you Lord Carlile.  A very quick question on the authenticity of this cache of documents?

LORD CARLILE: Well the circumstantial evidence shows it to be authentic, almost certainly, because the people identified – not just the British people – include people who are known to have participated in ISIL, so I think it is probably a very useful document.  What it does tell us is how well organised they are, how the state bit of Islamic State is a reality. The speed with which, for example, they diversified into Libya and have set up a major headquarters in Libya just in case something very major happens in Syria, is an example of how very well organised they are.

DM: What does it then mean for future policy, for Western governments like our own, if we accept that they very quickly have become, as you say, some form of state and then states put roots down.  

LORD CARLILE: Yes, and there are signs of them already doing that in Libya as well as in Syria.  It makes the conflict a bit more symmetrical, there is this distinction between symmetrical warfare between established states and asymmetrical warfare between states and terror groups.  It makes it more symmetrical, it makes it easier to understand ISIL, it may mean that at some point it will be possible to negotiate with them but one must be sure they are in a position of great weakness before they negotiate.  I am talking about negotiating a surrender at some point.  It suggests they are a different kind of organisation from Al Qaeda.

DM: It is interesting what you say there about negotiation, you can of course negotiate with states and its oft been said that with an ideology as radical as that and demands which are absolutely non-negotiable, there’s not much you can do but if they became a state that would, even if it was from a position of surrender, that would, would it not, involve some ceding of territory?

LORD CARLILE: I doubt it.  It may involve some negotiation about what happens to perhaps to prisoners who may wish to return to their states of origin but I can’t think of any circumstances in which ISIL would be allowed to retain territory.  Indeed, if there were to be negotiations it would be the last ditch negotiations but nevertheless they can be important.  The Second World War ended as a result of negotiations which actually produced a fairly satisfactory outcome, albeit after the passage of a great deal of time.  The end of the Korean War was negotiated, we still haven’t got the final outcome of that but I’m sure in time it will appear.  History is a very long game unfortunately.  

DM: What does it tell us about what the armed forces, the intelligence agencies know or didn’t know?  One formulation is that they didn’t know anything about this and this has been going on and a more formal state is being established there or that they did know but they haven’t told us because they want to characterise them as a bunch of terrorists?

LORD CARLILE: I want to make it clear that I don’t have the specialist knowledge to answer that question on an informed basis so I’m guessing no more than you, but on the basis of following these issues for many years.  I suspect that the security agencies of Britain, the United States, France and a number of other countries, were very well informed.  However it is beneficial for them to have confirmation from documents such as that which have been revealed in the last few days.  My view is that we do not give enough credit to our security agencies for what they have achieved, they are full of the unsung heroes who have spared us terrorism events on the streets of Britain and I actually deplore the criticism which is casually made of very good and very well controlled security agencies but an event like this gives them a bit more of an opportunity to verify what they believed they knew.  

DM: It is all so chilling isn’t it though, with the number of Europeans in there, British names in there, some of them have been killed but of course some disappeared, some presumably returned the UK, others returned to other countries within Western Europe.  What does it mean for preventing another Paris style attack taking place?

LORD CARLILE: Well we’ve been told, I’m sure correctly, that there are severe dangers of a Paris style attack in the United Kingdom.  That said, we have better control over our borders than the Schengen countries and it is much more difficult to possess lethal firearms in this country than in almost any other country in the world, certainly any other large and complicated country in the world.  

DM: And we are on the 20th anniversary of Dunblane and the campaign that flowed from that tragedy.  

LORD CARLILE: The Dunblane massacre led to a tightening up on the availability of firearms and of course the terrorism events since 9/11 and particularly 7/7 have meant that there has been very strong scrutiny in the United Kingdom of the use of firearms. I think the police will tell you that there are surprisingly few lethal firearms in the United Kingdom compared with many other countries – we want to keep it so.    

DM: But of the people named here and those who would have returned to their European countries of origin, can’t they just be arrested?  People are asking, why aren’t they picked up?  

LORD CARLILE: They have to be arrested of course, if they have committed criminal offences then they should be, possibly have to be in reality, arrested but there is always a balance.  When the Crown Prosecution Service decide whether somebody is going to be prosecuted, first of all there has be a realistic prospect of conviction.

DM: But there is a point isn’t there, if you are in theatres, so called, you can be killed by a drone but of course you return to a Western European country and suddenly you can’t be arrested?

LORD CARLILE: What I was going to say though is when you decide whether someone should be protected there is always a  public interest test and if somebody is prepared to provide really serious and detailed information that would lead to a significant reduction in terrorism in the United Kingdom then there will be a few cases – and only a few cases – in which it won’t be in the public interest to prosecute.  But as a rule of thumb, if there is real evidence that a jury would accept that people have committed acts of terrorism, they should be prosecuted of course.  

DM: Lord Carlile, thank you very much indeed for your thoughts and your analysis there.