British lives will be put at risk unless the UK “comprehensively reviews” intelligence sharing with the US, the Liberal Democrats have warned, amid fallout from the White House’s Signal security blunder.
The armed forces minister, Luke Pollard, insisted the UK still had “high confidence” its operational security measures “remain intact” as he appeared before MPs after the revelation that a journalist was inadvertently included in a messaging group to discuss US plans for a strike on Yemen.
No British service personnel had been put at risk as a result, Pollard told the Commons defence committee, but he conceded that disciplinary proceedings would be certain if a similar breach occurred in the UK.
However, the episode has been seized on by those calling for a re-appraisal of US-European relations, with the Lib Dems heaping pressure on Labour. “Their fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach to security means it could only be a matter of time until our own intelligence shared with them is also leaked,” said the party’s leader, Ed Davey. “This could put British lives at risk.”
Mike Martin, a Liberal Democrat MP and former army intelligence officer, told the Guardian: “How much more evidence do you need that the US is totally unreliable? We’ve got to start working more closely with our European partners on what collective defence looks like in Europe and more widely.”
Martin, who sits on the defence committee, said there already had already been concerns about the wide range of UK intelligence sharing with the US after the post of US director of intelligence was handed to Tulsi Gabbard, a former congresswoman who he said was “known for repeating the talking points of our main adversary, Russia”.
He also referred to reports that Steve Witkoff, US special envoy to the Middle East, might have been in Moscow when he sent messages on the Signal group. “At the one end of the spectrum he was effectively on the Kremlin wifi, and at the other end of other he was definitely on a Russian cell tower, which means the Russian state is sucking all the information.
“They should be taking burner phones when they go to Moscow in the first place, but to take his actual phone is extraordinary.”
While intelligence is shared within Nato, the UK’s relationship with the US goes even deeper through the 79-year-old Five Eyes intelligence pact, which encompasses both states, along with Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The controversy comes after four former British ambassadors to the US expressed concern earlier this month about the future of intelligence sharing with the US. They included Sir Peter Westmacott, who was in Washington from 2012 to 2016 and told a House of Lords committee it was not unheard of for intelligence to occasionally be held back from allies.
Westmacott used X on Tuesday to praise Jeffrey Goldberg, the journalist who was added to the Signal messaging group, as “one of the best” after he was verbally attacked by the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Meanwhile, experts cautioned that there are no alternatives – at least in the medium term – to the US-UK intelligence relationship. “The US remains pre-eminent in the world in terms of its capability, reach and budget,” said Dr Dan Lomas, an assistant professor at the University of Nottingham and a specialist in the UK intelligence community.
“There are options and the UK has many bilateral relations, with France and others, and the trajectory is towards them. The caveat is that the scope of any coverage from that is not the same as what the US brings in terms of intelligence.”
Sir Kim Darroch, another former UK ambassador to the US, said: “There has clearly been a serious, not to say inexplicable, breach of security, but the US-UK security and intelligence relationship is crucially important to us, and I don’t expect it to be significantly disrupted by this incident.”
