Dilandu wrote:Bluesqueak wrote:
We have no reason, none whatsoever, to release a chemical toxin in the middle of a shopping centre. Further, the (pretty rare) tradition of political assassination in the United Kingdom, whether by MI6 or others, is to attack the person to be assassinated, only. Not their daughter, stray police officers and anyone else who happened to wander past.
Please. If the assasination is supposed to be blamed on other side, it's hard to believe that MI6 would follow standard protocols! The more public backlash the better.
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Please. If Ministers of the British government were shown to have released chemical weapons in the middle of the shopping area of a British town, simply to deflect attention from Brexit, that government would be dead, deceased, would be like Cameron's government after the Referendum - gone, out of politics. There would be howls that MI6 is completely out of control, the current head would be fired, there possibly even be would be charges brought.
Actually, there'd be charges brought. Suspecting that MI6 might have killed someone about to reveal state secrets is one thing. Being so fricking clumsy, stupid and incompetent that you release a chemical agent in a populated area to try and kill one person just to deflect from domestic politics is another.
Britain uses assassination so rarely because people like MI6 are trained to lay out the consequences of 'what happens if they find out we did it'. Mostly those consequences are worse than any advantage gained.
Now, consider the consequences of a backlash for the Russian government. Britain is pissed off, but unlikely to start WW3 over an ex-spy. They'll expel some 'diplomats', we'll expel theirs. They'll threaten to freeze assets, we'll threaten to cut off the gas pipelines...
You're talking apples and oranges. This isn't going to bring down the Russian government, is it? Not even if we find 'From Russia With Love' on the bottle of toxin.