London, Nov. 17 : Former British Home Secretary John Reid has warned that mass migration and the Internet are major threats to the country’s national security.

According to The Telegraph, Reid also listed cyber attacks, pandemics, global warming and energy shortages as threats.

The MP for Airdie and Shotts said he is setting up a new think tank called the Institute of Security and Resilience Studies to assess long-term threats to the UK and other countries.

International migration had increased the range of threats against the UK after the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, he added.

"The chief characteristic of the world we have to face is mobility. Forty years ago, the Cold War meant that the borders were inviolate, extremist religious groups and ethnic tensions were suppressed, there was no Internet and travel was difficult. Now, you have a completely mobile world. So the great questions of mass migration, international crime and international terrorism were much higher than they were previously," he told the paper.

"We have to recognise that on the net you can practically get the full DNA of the First World War flu that killed 24 million people. National emergencies are no longer one-off events. Crises are looked upon as very exceptional circumstances. Actually they occur a lot more than people think, a lot more often than people know and they are getting more regular," he added.

"Countries, societies and economies that cannot develop better the capacity to prevent, resist and recover will be left vulnerable and exposed," Reid said, adding that his new institute would work on long term solutions with academics and the private sector to try to come up with long term solutions to help ministers on a "non-partisan" basis.

It will be run as a charity and based at University College, London. It should be up and running by this time next year, he said.

Reid, who will be the chairman, said he would draw on his experience running most of the major departments of state – defence, health and the home office as well as Northern Ireland before devolution. (ANI)