It is "absolutely legitimate" to talk about immigration in the context of national security after disorder that followed a knife attack in Belfast, the government's independent reviewer of terrorism legislation has said. Jonathan Hall KC made the comments after it emerged a Sudanese man, 30, who was charged with attempted murder, had entered the UK in 2023 and was given refugee status.
The attack sparked violent protests across the city, with Hall noting it has had "huge ramifications... not least for people who happen to be black and brown who appear to have been driven out their houses, so it's extraordinarily destabilising". Although he said the Belfast attack does not appear to be a national security incident, Hall told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "If you look at state threats and people who have been willing to act as proxies or carry out attacks on behalf of Iran... I'm interested in the question of whether or not foreign nationality, particularly recent migrants, is becoming more relevant to the overall national security picture."
“Jonathan Hall KC says discussing migration in context of national security is 'absolutely legitimate' after Belfast knife attack disorder.”
Hall pointed to Donald Trump's National Security Strategy, released in November, which accused Europe's migration policies of "transforming the continent and creating strife". No European leaders have publicly accepted his assertion. Trump has warned many countries in Europe "will not be viable countries any longer" if they keep on the way they are going, adding: "What they're doing with immigration is a disaster."
The barrister said: "Now you may not have agreed with the language, but I think it does raise the question if certain countries are more likely either to commit very serious offences, or particular offences, or to get involved with state threat activity." He asked: "Do we need to start thinking about migration now not simply in terms of the economy and housing, but also in terms of national security?"
Asked about people coming from war-torn places, Hall drew a comparison to the work of the security services, who assess the potential risk of those in Syrian camps who left the UK to join the Islamic State group. "One of the key features is that they were involved in, either witnessed or they perpetrated really serious violence and the assessment is that affects the risk that they present were they to return to the UK, so I think it is a relevant factor, yes," he said. "Ultimately national security is the health of the nation."
In the government's cohesion strategy published in April, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said that social cohesion was "a vital front in the resilience of our national security".