‘Regnum Defende’
In English, it means, “Defend the Realm”. This Latin phrase adorns the crest of the Security Service or as they are more commonly known, MI5. The phrase refers to a directive issued in 1952 by the then Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe. It was to define MI5’s mission as to be “the Defence of the Realm as a whole” from threats to national security such as espionage, sabotage and subversion.
Perhaps a more adequate description of what MI5 does today can be summoned up by the description given by the Security Services Act 1989. The act states that the role of MI5 is:
“the protection of national security and in particular its protection against threats such as terrorism, espionage and sabotage, the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from actions intended to overthrow or undermine parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means”
The Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) began operations in October 1909 as one single organisation. The Secret Service Bureau, as it was known was staffed initially by only two officers – a fifty-year-old Royal Navy Commander named Mansfield Cumming and an Army captain fourteen years his junior, called Vernon Kell. Cumming and Kell later parted company to become the first heads of, respectively, the future MI6 and MI5.
Today, MI5, headed by Director General Andrew Parker, is largely based in their headquarters at Thames House in London. They also have eight regional offices around Great Britain plus a Northern Ireland headquarters. The Service is organised into seven branches, each with specific areas of responsibility, which work to counter a range of threats including terrorism, espionage and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
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