[heero_yuy]

The former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove has just given a big boost for the Brexit campaign. Coming barely days after the terror attacks in Brussels, the former spy chief has said that the UK would be safer outside the European Union.

Writing in the current affairs magazine Prospect, he said: "Whether one is an enthusiastic European or not, the truth about Brexit from a national security perspective is that the cost to Britain would be low. Brexit would bring two potentially important security gains: the ability to dump the European Convention on Human Rights - remember the difficulty of extraditing the extremist Abu Hamza of the Finsbury Park Mosque - and more importantly, greater control over immigration from the European Union."

Pouring cold water over claims by Prime Minister David Cameron that the UK is more secure inside the bloc, he said that Europe could not turn its back on Britain if it left the EU because London's intelligence services "give much more" than they get in return. Dearlove led the Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 to 2004.

Dearlove was also highly critical of the EU's intelligence bodies, describing them as the "leakiest ships of state" and colanders riddled with holes. He said: "The larger powers cannot put their best intelligence material into such colanders. The British voice is nonetheless very influential because its intelligence and security community is, an will certainly remain, the strongest and most mature in Europe."

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I'd certainly take his words over and above those of self serving carear politicians.