Jeremy Fleming
The Architect
Structured and legacy-driven; builds the systems and institutions that last.
Jeremy Fleming is the former Director of GCHQ, where he navigated complex security challenges facing the UK. This interview reveals his focus on creating effective governance frameworks and addressing the intricacies of decision-making in national security.
“The Chinese diaspora stay in line. And I think you can say, you can point to areas where they're clearly not acting in our interests overseas, including supporting Russia in its fight in Ukraine. So I don't think it's very hard to paint the threat picture, the difficulty and where we always have a problem is in making the balance.”
“But the point is, you are bringing together senior ministers under the Prime Minister to be able to take national security questions. And that has to be a function which is important. Now, I can't recall which bit of that history you were around the table for, Rory. So forgive me.”
“Goal is the long term security of the party. Continuation of the state, that's where you start any conversation on the PRC and Chinese government. And it's how President Xi thinks about the world. And so their goal in trying to mount espionage here or pose a threat to us here is to collect intelligence.”
“Close partnerships, but international terrorism was a really good spur for that sort of collaboration because you can't have agencies when you've got the threat as live as it was on the streets of the United Kingdom. You can't have agencies who are not joined up.”
The Rest Is Politics: Leading — 175. Ex-Director of GCHQ: China, Russia, and the Threats Facing the UK (Jeremy Fleming)
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