White British students not allowed to apply for security services internship

Decision described as ‘blatant discrimination’ and ‘racist’ as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ try to increase diversity among their ranks. We have a fifth column within the Home Office and Ministry of Justice already. So far only the Army and Navy are still reliable, within the ranks and serving officers.  Having said that it would be necessary to have operatives who can move easily around those outside groups that menace us. But…

From the Telegraph

Britain’s intelligence services have launched a summer internship programme – but white British students are banned from applying. MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are offering students the opportunity of a paid internship next summer, promising that the opportunity represents the “first steps towards an exciting full-time career”.

It says that summer interns will not “just be sitting on the sidelines – this is your opportunity to get unique access to our operations, gain experience, and make key contributions to real projects”.

The advert goes on to explain that the 10-11 week “intelligence internship” is only open to students from a “Black, Asian, mixed heritage or ethnic minority” as well as those from a “socially or economically disadvantaged” background.

But any white British students from socially deprived families would not be considered for internships which could lead to a career as a spy. The advert states the internship is open to applications from “white other” groups such as Romany Gypsy, Scottish or Irish Travellers

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, called the internship programme “racist” and called for it to be axed.

“I understand the need to encourage applications from a wide range of backgrounds, including underrepresented minorities,” he said. “But this is an overtly racist policy and it should be immediately discontinued. It implies it is impossible for any white person to be deprived or deserving of assistance.”

One former senior Royal Air Force (RAF) officer said he believed the decision not to allow poor white students to apply is “blatant discrimination”. Tim Davies, a former Squadron Leader, said: “Opportunities are being denied to white children, that’s just a fact, they cannot apply just because they are white.” He said that the RAF had made a similar mistake when pursuing a recruitment policy which led to accusations that it had discriminated against white men in its effort to meet “aspirational diversity targets”.

The advert for summer interns at MI5, MI6 and GCHQ says that as well as being from a black, Asian, mixed heritage or ethnic minority background, students need to also be from a deprived family.  It says that to be eligible to apply for internships, the highest earner in the student’s household when they were aged 14 had to be either unemployed and seeking work, or employed but only in certain technical or manual occupations.

A spokesperson for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 said: “The summer intelligence internship is a lawful measure used by the intelligence agencies to encourage people from under-represented groups to consider careers with our organisations.”

Some of my favourite comments: 

• We are at war, we are being destroyed from within.
• Bang goes our nations security. How long before one of these foreigners goes rogue?
• Many years ago now I applied for the secret service, and the whole application process was about right wing terrorism…..I obviously didn’t progress very far. I’m pretty sure they didn’t want someone with my views
• We can only assume that the security forces finally recognise where the threat is coming from. That’s a dream, obviously. We all know the terror threat is coming from far right housewives and their hurty words.
• Rwandans from Cardiff go to the top of the list.