As the Undercover Policing Inquiry unearths more on the nefarious activities of the police and intelligence services, we republish the opening statement of the legal representatives of Lindsey German in relation to her testimony in the Inquiry

Opening statement in Tranche 1 Phase 3 to the Undercover Policing Inquiry on behalf of:

Lindsey German
Richard Chessum
‘Mary’

James Scobie QC | Garden Court Chambers
Piers Marquis | Doughty Street Chambers
Paul Heron | Public Interest Law Centre
25th April 2022

 

INTRODUCTION:

We represent three core-participants in Tranche 1 of this Inquiry. 

We addressed the key issues on behalf of Richard Chessum and “Mary” in our Phase 2 opening statement[1]. 

In this statement our focus is on Lindsey German, who was a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) from 1972 and had roles on the Central Committee of that Party for more than thirty years. 

We will demonstrate:

1:  That there was no justification for the infiltrations of the Troops Out Movement and the Socialist Workers’ Party, on the grounds of preventing public disorder.

2: That there was no policing justification at all. The true purpose of these infiltrations was political and economic. 

3: That neither of those purposes were legally justified and Government knew that to be the case. 

4: That Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) intelligence was used to blacklist lawabiding members of the public. 

We have a limited time available to us, and so we ask listeners to consider this opening statement alongside the written published version, which is more detailed and fully referenced. Where we refer to the unlawfulness of police activity, we endorse the legal framework provided on behalf of the Category H core-participants.

PURPOSE OF THE SDS – JUSTIFICATION:

The SDS was created to specifically deal with the potential public order threat of a single demonstration in 1968. Its role was to provide uniformed police with intelligence pertinent to their policing of that demonstration. It should have ended there.[2] 

It quickly became an intelligence trawl of left-wing political groups, growing ever more indiscriminate and ever more intrusive. 

Increasingly, the Squad’s focus shifted away from anything that could genuinely be described as police work. Suggestions that the SDS were involved in ‘law and order’ are not borne out by the reports that they generated. References to “disorder” became standardised, annually regurgitated in the SDS reports. It was part of a paper-trail pretence to justify Home Office funding and authorisation. 

Even though, in Chief Inspector Craft’s words, the SDS Annual reports were an exercise in “pointing up the value of the SDS in terms of public order”[3] the references to disorder in those reports were ever decreasing[4] and increasingly contrived. 

The 1975 Annual SDS report, made so little reference to disorder[5], that Commander Rodger of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch commissioned “a complete review of the [SDS]… its activities and objectives”[6]. Rodger noted that “over the past seven years [disorder at demonstrations] has dwindled considerably”. The response to the review came from the Chief Superintendent of the SDS, Rollo Watts. Watts accepted the decline[7] but nevertheless attempted to justify the continuation of the SDS.[8] He argued that the decline in disorder had been matched by a reduction in the number of undercover officers, from twenty-six down to twelve.[9] That was not true. There had been no reduction in the number of officers[10] at all. The number had remained consistent, but the lengths of the deployments had increased. 

At the same time that public disorder was decreasing, the recipients of SDS intelligence (or “customers” as D.I. Angus McIntosh called them[11]) were changing. 

At the outset, SDS intelligence was destined for uniformed officers, so that they could arguably be better equipped to deal with disorder[12]. Even there, as Detective Sergeant Roy Creamer put it, whilst the SDS “were looking for information, there was simply nothing to tell of; it was a case of ‘no news is good news’[13].

As time went on, the intelligence was increasingly sent elsewhere, to “customers” with little or no involvement in public order issues; other Special Branch departments, MI5, other (generally unnamed) Government Departments,[14] “external agencies”[15] or “liaison partners”[16]. Those “customers” also specifically tasked the SDS,[17] i.e. told them what to get and where to get it. 

By the end of the 1970s, the SDS management were having regular face to face meetings with MI5[18], including over games of sport (that are redacted for some reason).[19] They were also having monthly meetings over lunch, with the Home Office[20] (although the name and specific role of the Home Office representative in question, appear to have been forgotten). Other (un-named) government bodies were not liaised with directly. It was considered more appropriate to keep them at “arm’s length”.[21] 

By April 1980 SDS and MI5 were meeting for “drinks” every fortnight[22]. By August 1980 meetings were described as “routine”.[23]

At the same time, the volume of reports increased exponentially, from 200 information reports in 1969[24], to almost ten thousand by November 1971[25], with “thousands being produced on an annual basis” thereafter.[26]

In all of this reporting, there is a remarkable lack of reports on public order issues. The explanation offered for this by the SDS, is that the Metropolitan Police have destroyed or lost their material, and the documents that we are able to examine were sourced from MI5[27]. It follows, they say, that the reports we can see, are bound to give a skewed impression, because Special Branch did not send their public order reports to MI5. 

That is a very convenient, risible, explanation. And it does not fit with the evidence. As public disorder was declining, liaison with other “agencies” was increasing, along with the number of reports generated. Certainly by 1976 “Most of the information obtained by the SDS ultimately went to the Security Service”[28]. 

In relation to Lindsey German and Richard Chessum, the SDS were doing nothing in relation to policing at all. 

They did not report on law and order. 

They had no regard to the law at all.   

They were political and economic police, with echoes of the STASI. 

THE SOCIALIST WORKERS’ PARTY – POLICING THE NATIONAL FRONT:

First we are going to look at the fallacy of a public order justification.

Lindsey German was a member of the Central Committee of the SWP for more than

30 years. During that time the Party was by far the most infiltrated organisation by the SDS. There were at least twenty-four SDS officers that infiltrated them.[29] Many of those, we now know, took positions of responsibility of some sort at branch, district or national level[30]. 

They formed relationships with members that lasted for years, tricked them into friendships and sexual relationships.[31] They entered their homes, betrayed their trust and exploited them for intelligence purposes. We can see the intelligence that they gained in the reports. They reported on, and disseminated, the details of thousands of members; their personal lives[32], physical appearances[33], homes[34], children[35], finances[36], jobs[37], holiday plans[38], weddings[39], sexuality[40], paternity[41], relationship statuses[42], intelligence level[43], trade union affiliations[44], health[45], childcare arrangements[46], vehicles[47], studies[48], and opinions. There is a striking lack of reports on criminality, public disorder or violence.

Even in the Annual Reports, where the SDS desperately tried to justify their continued existence, it is difficult to find a rationale.

The Right to Work Campaign, and its annual march to the Conservative Party conference was an important, and high-profile demonstration supported by the SWP and endorsed by hundreds of trade unions.

In the 1980 SDS Annual Report[49], the SDS attempt to claim credit for the suggestion that “small ‘events’” on the route of that march “[were] frustrated by advance information” because the Right to Work Campaign was “so effectively penetrated by the SDS”. In fact, their own internal report[50] had always indicated that the march itself was ‘not seen as a great threat to public order”. In another internal report the SDS attributed the lack of disorder on the march to the presence of “local and national media”.[51] The SDS infiltration had no impact whatsoever on disorder on that march. But they presented a different picture to the Home Office. Whether that was for their own benefit (to secure funding) or the Home Office’s (to have a policing related explanation to hand, should they ever need one) is not entirely clear. 

The SDS also attempt to claim credit for the lack of disorder at the culminating demonstration. Inevitably, there is no reference to the discussions that Lindsey German herself had with the infiltrating officer, (HN80) ‘Colin Clark’, about “taking steps to ensure that no one did get arrested… to ensure the safety of everyone through good stewarding”.[52]  Equally, there is no reference at all to the fact that the SWP took great care in stewarding their events[53], and that ‘Clark’ himself was an SWP steward at their National Conferences.[54]  

The 1981 SDS Annual Report[55], makes references to “pickets, occupations and marches as protests against unemployment and cuts in public expenditure” and the

‘anti-Tory’ demonstration at the march’s culmination. But it makes no reference to any disorder. 

Previous Right to Work Campaign marches did not even feature in the Annual Reports. The only references to genuine disorder were in respect of processions organised by the National Front. 

In terms of justification there were clearly better methods of policing that kind of disorder.

1. The infiltration of the SWP does not appear to have generated any intelligence of use. In the thousands of pages of reporting on SWP activity, there is a distinct lack of anything that actually concerns public order. Some officers have been open about the fact that their reporting showed no risk[56].There is nothing that could not have been sourced using lawful methods of policing.[57]

2.Any confrontations stemmed from documented, historically confirmed, attacks by the far right on minorities and leftists[58] [59] [60]. We highlighted some of the murders, beatings, arsons and threats in our last statement to the Inquiry[61]. In her statement, Lindsey German highlights that in the six years between 1975 and 1981, fifty-one black and Asian people were killed in suspected racist murders.[62] One method of preventing disorder, would have been removing the root of the risk. Police resources would have been better spent preventing and solving real politically motivated crime. There were repeated calls, by the SWP and others, for the police to do exactly that.[63]

But they did not. In the 1979 Special Branch Annual Report[64] reference is made to the murder, in May 1978, of Altab Ali. The language used by the police to describe that murder, is illuminating. They said: “This death, although not attributable to any racialist attack, was nevertheless used by the extreme left to influence an already deteriorating situation in the Bengali community”. 

Those words were written over a year after Altab Ali’s murder. At the time that they were written, there was no doubt whatsoever that the murder was racially motivated. One of the suspects had told the police “”If we saw a Paki we used to have a go at them…I’ve beaten up Pakis on at least five occasions.”[65]   

In September of 1978, Altab Ali’s former employer, the secretary of the Brick Lane mosque, had published a report. It was called “Blood on the Streets”. It detailed the number of racist attacks on the community in Brick Lane in just the first four months of 1978. There were thirty-three. It listed hammer attacks, stabbings, punctured lungs, slashed faces, airgun shot wounds, people beaten with bricks and sticks and knocked unconscious in broad daylight.[66]

But the police denied racial motivation, even when it had been confessed. They then suggested that the terror in local communities was somehow the fault of left-wing activists.

3. If there is going to be infiltration, why were the National Front not infiltrated? There has been a suggestion that Special Branch already had “excellent sources in the far right”[67]. They clearly did not. Any sources that they did have were not doing a very good job of preventing the almost daily disorder and violence that the National Front and their ilk were perpetrating on London’s streets. 

Certainly in 1975, the SDS knew, that “Most of the public order problems were concerned with the activities of the National Front”[68]. Special Branch knew that National Front members were responsible for “several brutal attacks on members of ethnic minorities” and they knew that this brutality heightened opposition to them.[69] SDS officers experienced the National Front violence themselves, although we rarely see it reported. The recent evidence of HN21[70] emphasis the point. He said “You would be selling the papers and then suddenly from out of the blue some National Front or National Party people would turn up and try and have a go at you… Physically… I had a fight with someone who was trying to attack me… they were quite big and you know some of us were puny creatures. So, it wasn’t in our interests to confront them physically… From the SWP side, it was mostly shouting. From the Far Right thing, it was mostly physical violence”.

But there was no infiltration[71]. D.I. Angus McIntosh (HN244) recalls that there was a “high level policy decision” not to infiltrate the far right.[72] A policy decision is the only explanation that makes sense. What was that policy? 

Far right demonstrations were deliberately provocative of violence by their very nature. They targeted minority areas with as large a show of force as they could muster; the same minority areas they were targeting with extreme levels of politically motivated violence. 

There is no justification for the violations of individual rights perpetrated by the SDS. But at least if they were infiltrating a political organisation as criminally violent as the National Front, they might have an argument that their work was in someway connected to policing. 

4. Listening to the communities themselves. They were frightened. As well they might be. The National Front was an avowedly Nazi party[73]. The people of Southall, Lewisham and Wood Green, did not want their community cohesion fractured by fascist demonstrations. They called for bans, or at least re-location. They were ignored.

The SDS Annual Reports of 1981 and 1982 note that confrontations with the far right did not happen in those years. On both occasions the SDS put that down to the Commissioner banning National Front processions, because they were deliberately provocative of disorder and violence[74]. They always had been. The National Front marches in Southall, Lewisham and Wood Green were all deliberately provocative of disorder and violence. Surely, Special

Branch’s “excellent sources” could have pointed out the inherently obvious. If police had listened to the communities they were supposed to be serving, the disorder at Southall and Lewisham would never have happened. Instead, they are used as excuses for the wholesale infiltration of the SWP. 

5. The Metropolitan Police themselves, contributed to or caused public disorder at demonstrations. The only SDS report on the Lewisham disorder was retrospective, and highly critical of policing methods[75]. At Southall, the National Council of Civil Liberties were also highly critical of policing methods[76]. One undercover officer, HN41[77] was warned off attending the Southall demonstration by his managers. His explanation for this warning was that “the uniform police were going to clamp down on the demonstrations” and the “dangers” would be “more than normal”[78]. The pre-planned, dangerous “clamp down” would explain the account of, former SWP member, Joan Rudder[79]. She had been helping injured demonstrators when she was ordered out of a house and made to run a gauntlet of police officers, who beat her until her head split open.

At Red Lion Square, Lindsey German witnessed police officers throwing demonstrators over railings onto an underpass[80].  

At both Southall and Red Lion Square, police actions caused the deaths of demonstrators.

The World in Action documentary of the Right to Work Campaign March in 1980[81] demonstrates the issue. The marchers travelled the length of the country with a low-key police escort. The exchange between the marchers and that escort was good-natured and even jovial. The SDS report on this march, had listed the time and place of the arrival[82] in London and made it clear that there were no public order concerns. But when the march arrived in Southall, it was met by a legion of police[83]. They flanked the roads, in the same way that they had done, two years before, on the day they killed Blair Peach.

6. Finally, it was understood, that the police were doing nothing about far-right violence and disorder or were complicit in it. That was not paranoid or imagined. It is not just racist language evident in some of the reporting[84]. Or the widespread perception that the Police protected the National Front[85]. Or the massively disproportionate stops and searches of young black people. Or the subsequent findings of institutionalised racism in the police. 

One of the most interesting documents to have been disclosed in this phase[86] deals with the Chief Superintendent of Special Branch directing two senior SDS officers (DI Riby Wilson and HN332) to meet with Lady Jane Birdwood[87] at her home in 1968. Lady Birdwood was described as “politically well-informed” and “well-known to Special Branch for her anti-communist views and activities”. The SDS officers “thanked for her interest” and asked her to pass on any information that she “or her friends with similar interests” may have. Lady Birdwood and her “friends” were far-right activists, and well known as such at the time. She was a racist and an antisemite. She became periodically associated with the National Front, the British Movement and the British National Party[88], stood as a far-right candidate in three elections[89] and was later convicted for multiple offences of inciting racial hatred. Why infiltrate the far right if you can have tea with your “excellent sources” on their “lawn”? 

It is apparent that nothing was done about the far-right violence. It was almost as if there was a reason for not doing anything. A divided society is useful to the establishment[90], even at the expense of public order. Historically, far-right movements prosper at times of economic crisis. Immigrants are blamed for unemployment and that is a distraction from the failing policies of Government. 

What is never mentioned in the SDS Annual Reports is the SWP emphasis on positive methods of undermining fascists. Every day, local, activity to protect minorities and themselves. The organisation of estate residents to paint out NF graffiti, set up telephone links for mutual support and warnings against racist attacks,[91] organising a protection rota to protect minority residents[92]. And then, there is Rock Against Racism[93], that the SWP had a crucial role in[94]. That did more to unite people and prevent disorder and violence on the streets than the SDS ever did. The joint leader of the National Front admitted that it had been effectively destroyed[95] by the campaigns of the Anti-Nazi League, again contributed to by the SWP.   

There was no anti-Government or anti-State disorder. There was nothing that could have been said to have been “violent subversion” or “revolutionary violence”.

PUBLIC ORDER ISSUES AND THE TROOPS OUT MOVEMENT:

We dealt with public disorder issues in respect of Richard Chessum and the Troops Out Movement in our last Opening Statement. Quite simply, there were none. The undercover officers and their management do not even pretend that there were any public order concerns.[96] [97]

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC POLICING – THE REAL RATIONALE:

So, what was the real rationale? 

The SDS was a part of Special Branch; their roles and motivations are inseparable. 

The role of Special Branch was reviewed in 1970, by what were called ‘Terms of Reference’, described as originating from the Home Office[98] and prepared “in collaboration with the Security Service and other interested parties”.[99]

The ‘Function’[100] of the Special Branch was to gather intelligence, secretly and overtly, for two purposes. The first of those, was easily justifiable from a policing perspective, to assist in preserving public order; which was a police function. The second was assisting the Security Service, in two identified roles:   

1. in respect of espionage and sabotage, which again were clearly relatable to police functions as both are covered by the criminal law and 
2. more pertinently as far as this Inquiry is concerned, from actions of persons and organisations which may be judged to be subversive of the security of the State.

The specific ‘Tasks’[101] of the Branch included “consultation with the Security Service to collect, process and record information about subversive or potentially subversive organisations and individuals”.  

The ‘Terms’ were accompanied by an Annexe which clearly instructed senior officers that it was “important that Special Branches should have a clear idea of what constitutes ‘persons and organisations which may be judged to be subversive of the security of the State’”.[102] 

However, they then failed to provide those senior officers and their Special Branches with any definitive idea of what “subversive” actually meant.[103] 

This may have been the source of some discomfort for Chief Constables[104], because ill-defined MI5 lackey work is not what the police are supposed to be about. However, a good officer, conscious of the principles of policing, could interpret the ‘Terms’ consistently with Special Branch’s pre-existing responsibility, which was “the prevention of crimes directed against the state”[105]. 

That responsibility, preventing crime, was also enshrined in the legal definition of “subversion”, widely published, accepted and acknowledged from 1963, when Lord Denning had reported on the roles of MI5 and Special Branch after his Inquiry into the Profumo Affair.[106] 

‘[…] [subversives are those who] would contemplate the overthrow of the Government by unlawful means.’[107] 

That definition is clear. It speaks very obviously of the “overthrow” of the body appointed from those elected by the mandate of the people. And it poses no difficulty for a police officer because, from a policing perspective, what is “unlawful” and what it not, is defined by the Criminal Law.

Applying that definition to the ‘Terms’; police officers can still do their work professionally. They can collect and record information about criminal, or potentially criminal, organisations and individuals, or investigate criminal backgrounds to demonstrations or industrial disputes.[108] All of those activities had to be conducted within the limits on police powers imposed by the law.[109] What they cannot do is “pry” into political opinions and private conduct, because as Lord Denning said, that would be “in the nature of a Gestapo or Secret Police”.[110]

Unfortunately, because the ‘Terms’ were deliberately[111] opaque, officers were encouraged to be flexible in their interpretation of “subversion”. The Security Service certainly considered themselves to have an unfettered discretion to define it as they wished.[112]

And in 1972, MI5 unilaterally re-defined it.[113] 

“Subversion” became “activities threatening the safety or well-being of the State and intended to undermine or overthrow Parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means”. 

That definition is very different. It prioritises the well-being of the State, which, of course, is not democratically elected. It could arguably encompass any democratic movement, which seeks to amend the basis of democracy or change the established order. But most importantly, from a policing perspective, it no longer makes reference to the law. “Violent means” are well covered by the criminal law. But political and industrial means are not.

Because the ‘Terms’ did not include a definition and were not adapted to compensate for the whims of the Security Service, the police were now encouraged to depart entirely from the basic principles that underpin policing. To covertly[114] collect information about individuals who were simply potentially subversive.[115] People who the police knew had no involvement, whatsoever, in any kind of unlawful conduct. 

The Security Service have attempted to add some legitimacy to their unilateral redefinition, by referring to it as “the Harris definition”[116], “formally adopted by Lord Harris of Greenwich, Minister of State at the Home Office in a debate in the House of Lords on 26 February 1975”.[117] What they neglect to mention is that they had briefed Lord Harris with that definition in advance of that debate[118]. His assertion that this definition was “generally regarded”[119] as appropriate, actually means nothing more than “This is how MI5 defines it”. But MI5 cannot change the law. Having a Lord repeat a briefed definition in a debate, does not change the law. 

In fact, Lord Harris had continued his speech, with an implicit endorsement of the Lord Denning definition “It is fundamental to our democratic traditions that people should be free to join together to express and further their views, whatever others may think of those views, provided they do not break the law”.[120] That re-iteration of fundamental policing principles has been comprehensively ignored.   

The clear shift in the activity of the SDS, in terms of their “customers” and reporting, coincided with the introduction of the “MI5 definition” (read alongside the 1970 ‘Terms’) and then the selective false legitimacy of a Lord’s debate. Policing public order became policing the political, like Richard Chessum and the Troops Out Movement. And the political and industrial like Lindsey German and the Socialist Workers’ Party. 

The Home Office and Security Service expanded police powers without democratic or electoral scrutiny and without any regard to the law. 

It is worth noting that in the course of the Lord’s debate, four of the speaking Lords described themselves as subversive,[121] forcefully pointing out that revolution need not be violent. Almost anybody could be described as “potentially subversive”. 

The police could and did, “pry” into the political opinions and private conduct of lawabiding citizens, doing away with our freedom of political thought, and association, of free assembly and expression. These were the “Secret Police” that Lord Denning spoke of. 

This was the reason why Government was so terrified of the people finding out about the SDS.[122] The correspondence that accompanies every SDS Annual report, emphasises the Home Office’s constant need for reassurance about “security”[123], avoiding “embarrassment”[124], and the “political sensitivity”[125] of their continued funding of this Stasi-like unit. 

GOVERNMENT KNOWLEDGE:

The Home Office documents provided in this phase of the Inquiry show the extent of their collusion with the Security Service; the hidden cogs of the state manoeuvring, the duplicity, the avoidance of accountability and the creation of a veil of plausible deniability. They encouraged the “considerable increase in the size and responsibilities of Special Branches in the 1970s”[126]. Special Branches that, working with MI5, were “more heavily involved in those aspects of their duties which are more sensitive politically”[127] i.e. spying on innocent people. 

They were particularly concerned about criticism from within Parliament and from investigative journalists[128]; that Special Branches were “over-secretive and under accountable”, and “interest themselves in, and record the activities of, people who are merely undertaking proper political or industrial activity”.[129]

It is interesting that the members of Parliament and journalists that they were concerned about, had no idea of what was really going on. The criticism and public outrage came from incidents such as police taking photographs of demonstrators[130], or asking an arrested student to be an informant[131], or carrying out checks on Aeroflot passengers[132]. This was nothing compared to what the Home Office were actually funding the SDS to do. 

The Home Office’s first inclination in response to these legitimate concerns was to lie about it; saying “It may be possible to discount much of this criticism as either misguided or mischievous”[133]. While knowing that not only was it all true, but they were signing off secret authorities for SDS officers to do far, far worse. We ask the Inquiry to be conscious of this level of duplicity when engaging with Government about their authorisation of the SDS. 

A number of senior police officers were distinctly unhappy about what they were being told to do.  In 1974 Commander Gilbert was of the view that “… for the most part work done [for MI5] had little or no relevance to SB’s proper charter and… tied up staff, of which he was chronically short… in totally unproductive activity”.[134]

Chief Constables raised concerns that MI5 sought more intelligence from Special Branches than they needed[135]. The work they were doing for MI5 was damaging police relations with the public[136]. Most importantly that the Chief Constables had no idea whether there was even Ministerial approval of, or authority for, the work that they had been doing on behalf of MI5[137] for the past ten years[138]. They knew that the ‘Terms’, the “MI5 definition” and the artifice of the 1975 Lords Debate did not constitute lawful authority in a democracy. And they knew that no Minister would be willing to formally put their name to this.   

When the Home Office concede in internal documents that there is not “a water-tight basis on which to justify the work of police officers in investigating and recording the activities of subversives”[139], what they mean is “It is not lawful”. The Home Office knew that there was no justification. They asked themselves a question:

“How can the work of police officers (which all members of Special Branches are) in investigating subversion, as currently defined, be justified given that the definition covers some activities which are not, as such, unlawful?”[140].

But they could not answer it. There was no legal justification. 

And of course, they were only referring to what Special Branch was doing; the antidemocratic incursions of the SDS were far more invidious. 

The Home Office attempted to retrospectively legitimise Special Branch activity by reformulating the ‘Terms’[141], but they failed; ultimately the Security Service blocked any attempt to update or amend them.[142] 

A more honest and straightforward way of having police investigate the activities of political and industrial activists would have been to pinpoint the behaviour that Government was concerned about and attempt to legislate to criminalise it as appropriate. But, of course, that could never have happened; fundamentally because the activists were not doing anything wrong. Parliament and the people would not have stood for the criminalisation of their fundamental rights. So, the Government orchestrated the increased police powers, by guile and duplicity, unlawfully and antidemocratically. It is a sad irony that Government activity was far more proximate to  

Lord Denning’s definition of “subversion” than any of the organisations that the SDS infiltrated. 

In passing, to suggest that knowledge stopped at the Home Office and went no higher is beyond comprehension. 

In our Phase 2 Opening Statement we stressed the links between SDS sign-offs and Ted Heath and Harold Wilson[143]. James Callaghan had been the Home Secretary who presided over the inception of the SDS in 1968. He had personal meetings with Conrad Dixon[144] and was well aware of the SDS remit. One of his last acts as Home Secretary in 1970 was to oversee the introduction of the Terms of Reference.[145] It is not credible to suggest that, when he was Prime Minister between 1976 and 1979, he did not check on the progress of his two creations. Equally it would be stretching credibility to suggest that Prime Ministerial knowledge ended in 1979 with Margaret Thatcher. 

Undoubtedly, the civil servants wringing their hands about the illegality of Special Branch activity (such as Sir Robert Armstrong[146], Sir James Waddell[147], RJ Andrew[148] and David Heaton[149]) were the same civil servants signing off the funding for the SDS.[150] Firmly reminding the SDS managers of the need for security. 

THE IMPACT:

The SWP was an open,[151] democratic centralist,[152] organisation that held predominantly open and publicised meetings.[153] It had an open membership,[154] and a democratically elected structure,[155] with positions of responsibility open to all members.[156] It published its aims, campaigns and political theories in an open way[157]. The Metropolitan Police even had subscriptions to the publications[158].

Those theories were socialist, and revolutionary. It is important to set the record straight in respect of a fundamental misconception: the Socialist Workers’ Party were not arguing for any kind of “putsch against the state”[159]. There was no talk of guillotines or bombing campaigns. The aims of revolutionary socialism are to transform society from within, re-addressing the balance of power away from the minority that holds it, to the majority that should. That process has to be democratic by definition. 

They campaigned on issues such as sexual discrimination, racism, low-pay, unsafe working conditions, unemployment and poverty. All of which needed transforming. They focused on building a mass movement and broad-based campaigns[160] with the aim of helping to create a better society[161]. 

Transforming society for the benefit of the majority by the majority should not be seen as a threat to the “safety of the well-being of the State”. Using an open, democratic organisation to try to create a broad-based democratic movement should not be seen as an attempt to “undermine or overthrow Parliamentary democracy”. 

But, transforming society on the issues that the SWP were campaigning on, would ultimately have a detrimental impact on the establishment. 

And that explains the timing of the 1972 MI5 re-definition of “subversion”. 

1972 was the year of three major industrial disputes, Saltley Gate, the Dock Strike and the Building Workers’ Strike[162]. All were designed to better the living conditions of the workers, all were examples of unified people power, all were successful and ultimately all impacted negatively on capitalism. 

It also explains the obsessive focusing of the SDS on the personal details and employment of trade union affiliation of their targets, and the massive data trawl of leftists (rather than rightists) that the operation had become. 

‘Colin Clark’ (HN80) and ‘Phil Cooper’ (HN155): 

MI5 had had a long-standing interest in SDS officers rising up the hierarchy to the SWP Headquarters.[163] They made it clear to the SDS management that their “ideal would be a permanent well-placed employee in… headquarters, not necessarily too high up in the organisation”.[164]  

The SDS did exactly as they were told. ‘Colin Clark’[165] and ‘Phil Cooper’[166], both became the National Treasurers of the Right to Work Campaign and both were close to the Central Committee. In headquarters, but not too high up. The fact that they took those positions in direct succession to each other meant that for six years, between 1978 and 1983, MI5 had their “permanent” source, exactly where they wanted it.[167] This tasking was not a public order related tasking; that is why the SDS struggled, in their Annual reports,[168] to attribute any disorder to the Campaign. 

In the words of the SDS themselves, the Campaign was “an organisation to fight for the rights of Trades Unions, individuals and groups of workers, against the oppression of management and Government, in particular at this time of high unemployment and anti-union legislation”[169]. The aim, again in the SDS’s own words, was for “pressure [to] be brought to bear against management and… government, when fighting short time working, redundancies and unemployment, or demanding improved pay and/or conditions”. [170]

That description, given by the SDS, is an accurate assessment of the SWP engaging in militant trade unionism.[171] Militant trade unionism was an area that neither MI5 nor Special Branch were permitted to investigate. However, the infiltrations into the SWP, targeted as they were, were designed to do exactly that.   

‘Clark’ and ‘Cooper’s’ roles were different to those who had obtained positions of responsibility in the Troops Out Movement[172]. ‘Rick Gibson’ (HN297)[173] and ‘Mike James’ (HN96)[174] had left that organisation de-stabilised and ineffective after their successive leaderships.[175] 

There is some evidence that ‘Cooper’ was deliberately creating discord within SWP headquarters[176]; and was doing so with the connivance of MI5 and SDS senior officers. But the Security Service disclosure is silent on the detail and of course the police do not know where their papers are. 

Primarily, ‘Clark’ and ‘Cooper’ took their positions to harvest intelligence on the SWP’s organisational structure, administration, finances and membership. That is what they did. They used their attendance at almost every National Delegate Conference and Annual Skegness Rally from 1977 to 1983 to speak to hundreds of members and gather personal details. They used their access to the Party Headquarters and computer system to steal the organisation’s data, and the data of its members.[177] As ordered by MI5[178]. ‘Cooper’ even ended up in complete control of the Right to Work Campaign bank account. [179]  

The scale and scope of the reporting, and the number of people with files opened on them, is astonishing. 

Just by way of a few examples from a mass of reporting: 

At the 1980 Annual Easter Rally[180], at Skegness, the SDS listed over a thousand named attendees from across the UK[181]. Their addresses, and in the majority of cases, their Special Branch file numbers, were noted alongside their names.

On a list of 198 named attendees at a peaceful Blair Peach demonstration,[182] only seven were listed as having “no trace” on Special Branch files. 

From the SWP’s National Delegate Conference in 1978[183], just under 300 names were listed, alongside addresses, trade union membership and file references. 

The report on the National Delegate Conference on 1978[184] is 171 pages long. It contains detailed analysis of administration and finance, breakdowns of branch by branch membership nationwide, an extensive list of unions that had SWP members[185], and a full breakdown of educational institutions with SWP members.[186]

The report on the 1982 Right to Work Campaign March[187] was more a detailed list of financial contributors than anything else, with pages and pages of photocopied cheques.   

The SDS reported on people and sent their details to MI5 simply for buying copies of the Socialist Worker Newspaper.[188] On one occasion, that we know of, a 15 year old boy had his personal details recorded and sent to MI5 because he read the Socialist Worker and had been to anti-Nazi demonstrations.[189]

‘Clark’ and ‘Cooper’s’ reporting covers the same themes as other undercover officers. Their indexes contain more reports on personal details, such as the physical appearances and relationship statuses of female activists[190] [191], than anything remotely disorder related.

But the real focus is on members’ employment details and trade union affiliations.[192] 

And that brings us to a topic that is of particular importance to Richard Chessum; but plainly impacts on the members of every leftist organisation that was infiltrated by these officers. Blacklisting, where the reports of these officers impacted on the financial well-being, security and prospects of targets and their families, wrecking countless lives. 

BLACKLISTING AND THE TRADE UNIONS:

The evidence of the senior officers disclosed in this phase makes repeated reference to SDS reports being used for “vetting”[193],  which was an activity of both MI5 and Special Branches[194]. SDS officers had been answering specific MI5 requests for information on employment since, at least, co-incidentally, 1972.[195]

There was a real danger of blacklisting for the SWP membership,[196] with individual members of the SWP losing their jobs for often spurious reasons.[197] At the same time there were reports that the Metropolitan Police often visited the office of the Economic League[198] with files about trade unionists.[199]

Richard Chessum gave evidence[200] as to how, despite his qualifications and decency, he was repeatedly refused employment.

The Inquiry disclosure in phase 3, gives a great deal of insight into the liaison between MI5 and Special Branch on the issue of vetting. An example is a fractious exchange of documents between the two[201] where MI5 set down a marker, that the passing of information to employers about their employees is the role of MI5, rather than that of Special Branch.[202]The document is clearly meant (and taken) as a rebuke. It clearly indicates that Special Branch had been relaying employment intelligence to employers. The Special Branch response[203] is phrased extremely carefully[204]. It emphasises that there are rules to prevent them passing such information[205] and that that provision of intelligence to employers is MI5’s job[206]. However, it then goes on to state that it has its own contacts (predominantly former police officers) with the employers, and a “close and mutually profitable relationship” with them,[207] before telling MI5 in no uncertain terms that “any measure tending to restrict or inhibit our enquiry work” is not acceptable to them.[208] Stripping away the veil of plausible deniability that is a feature of most of these official documents; Special Branch says that there might be rules, but they have their ways of getting round them, and they are going to continue to do so. 

This “enquiry work” between Special Branch and employers is also referred to on the face of the disclosed Home Office documents. In 1974 a number of MPs[209] raised concerns in a meeting with the Home Secretary[210] about the relationship Special Branch had with employers and trade union management; in particular that Special Branch were passing on lists and photographs of those who attended demonstrations and meetings.[211] Interestingly, the note of this meeting was passed on to Sir James Waddell[212] who was responsible for reminding the SDS of the need for “security”. Waddell’s response, in a letter directly to the Home Secretary,[213] is illuminating.

Unsurprisingly, it suggests reminding Special Branch of the need for “care and discretion”.[214] On the issue of whether, or not, Special Branch were passing intelligence to employers, he said this: 

“We know ourselves that some employers plead to be given warning if known agitators seek or obtain employment with them. The official response has always been refusal, sometimes with a hint that there are unofficial bodies[215] which might help. But when a Special Branch officer is himself seeking help from an employer, or from a trade union official, it is asking a good deal to expect him to insist invariably that he is engaged in one way traffic”.[216] 

This is the “close and mutually profitable relationship”[217] between Special Branch and employers. The passing of intelligence gleaned from SDS operations, for the purpose of blacklisting. 

These are the “customers” that so many SDS managers refer to in their statements.[218]

The “employers” referred to include, not just Government Departments and the Civil Service[219] but also public corporations such as the Bank of England, the BBC, the British Council and, pertinently for Richard Chessum, the Post Office.[220] Most importantly they also included ‘List X firms,’[221] which are private corporations, engaged in government security contracts.[222] Of course, those firms were not only involved in government security contracts. Once they had the lists of people who were concerned enough about their society as to demonstrate in order to change it, they could ensure that those people never worked again. 

To give an idea of the scale, between 1970 and 1973, the top fifty firms[223] that held government defence contracts were all household names. They covered all sectors and included, for example, British Leyland, Rolls Royce, Laird Group, British Steel, Shell, ICI, Weir Group and Standard Telephones. 

We do not know how many ‘X Firms’ there were in total. But once those lists were passed on, there was nothing to stop them being passed on again, and again, amongst federations of employers. Lists that were continually updated by the SDS. 

We raised these issues of blacklisting in our first opening statements. We are grateful to the Inquiry for sourcing and disclosing this material that puts SDS and Special Branch involvement in blacklisting beyond doubt. 

These lists of demonstrators and meeting attendees were also passed to trade unions.[224] 

It is important at this stage to put right another misconception. Trade Unions were not founded by people who routinely liaised with police officers to assist them in blacklisting their memberships. Trade Unions were founded by people like Eleanor Marx and Tom Mann[225]. Both Marxists. The narrative that organisations like the SWP, “infiltrated” trade unions, as if they were a separate species, is false. It is terminology used by the SDS and the Home Office, (via Sir James Waddell[226]) as part of their attempt to justify SDS infiltrations. This is the same Home Office, that when faced with MPs concerned about Special Branch infiltrations of unions, told them that there was none, directly or indirectly.[227] That was an outright lie.

We ask that the Inquiry be very careful about adopting that narrative. If anything, the infiltrators were those that betrayed their rank and file by passing their names to employers.[228] 

The police say there was no direct reporting on trade unions, any reporting was indirect, just a by-product. That is a bending of the truth. 

Many trade unions supported the SWP campaigns, and when they did, they were reported on. Five hundred trade union branches sponsored the 1980 Right to Work march and the detail of that support was sent to Box 500 by the SDS.[229] 

The same process was adopted on every part of the Right to Work Campaign[230]. Many trade unionists joined the SWP and when they did they were reported on[231]. Indeed,  if a trade union subscribed to the Socialist Worker newspaper, it was reported on[232].  

These reports are littered with the trade union related intelligence[233] that MI5 and the Home Office had been seeking since 1972.[234]

The bulk of reporting on the SWP membership is related to employment and industrial issues. But this was not to be used for “national security vetting” as the senior officers would try to have us believe. These reports were on probation officers and social workers,[235] hospital workers,[236] teachers,[237] firemen,[238] DHSS staff,[239] workers at Ford and General Motors,[240] bank staff,[241] caterers,[242] ambulance staff,[243] British rail staff[244], post office staff[245], trades people.[246] More often than not, these reports detailed nothing other than their name, employment, employer details, and trade union membership.   

Special Branches were involved in blacklisting nationally. The ‘True Spies’ documentary[247] deals with one example of Special Branch collusion with industry. The Ford Motor company made investment decisions on the basis of a “secret assurance… involving MI5 and Special Branch”.  That deal meant that Ford would send lists of job applicants to Special Branch who would “strike a line” through names and return them.[248] The deal was designed to prevent “strikes”. That is economic policing. 

‘Clark’ and ‘Cooper’s’ thousand strong lists of SWP members across the United Kingdom must have been incredibly useful. It is no surprise that ‘Clark’ was officially commended for his work.[249] It is also no surprise that SDS Chief Inspector, Trevor Butler, considered the “True Spies” documentary to be “an earth-shattering breach of the “need to know” principle”. in their Phase 1 opening statement, the Designated Lawyers assured the Inquiry that “SDS personnel were not involved in trade union blacklisting”[250]. The evidence from Phase 3 demonstrates that the SDS did not ask and did not care what use their reports were put to. 

It is clear that the SWP members were right to be afraid of being blacklisted. The answer to the problem that Government faced after the successful industrial action of 1972, was to find the workers who were prepared to stand up and take them out of the workforce.   

CONCLUSION:

The Home Office knew that the intentional vagueness of their ‘Terms’ and definitions had left officers “uncertain about the proper extent of their role.”[251] But they were not in any hurry to do anything about it[252]. Equally, MI5, bound as they were by their own public[253] terms of reference[254]  were doubtless happy to continue “using the SDS to gather information”[255]

Barry Moss, who was both Chief Inspector and Superintendent of the SDS during the deployments of ‘Clark’ and ‘Cooper’ was certainly one of the officers who was uncertain about his role. His definition of subversion[256] was so loose, that it is no wonder MI5 looked forward to “mutually useful co-operation” with him. 

Nothing was ever done to dispel the uncertainty.[257]

As a result, the SDS continued to just “hoover up everything”,[258] irrespective of the consequences for their targets. Their senior officers encouraged them to do so.[259]   

Ironically, it was ‘Colin Clark’ himself who came closest to an accurate assessment of the SWP. He spent five years deployed at the heart of the organisation, with access to every detail of its aims and activities and was fully de-briefed by MI5 at the end of his deployment.[260] He was not operating among subversives, “[The SWP] were strongly opposed to government policy but were not seeking to subvert the institutions of the state”[261]

None of these people posed any threat to the security of the nation. Roy Creamer had it right, all the way back at the beginning.  “Whilst we were looking for information, there was simply nothing to tell of… There were no hidden conspiracies anywhere and there was nothing hidden going on”.[262] 

 

James Scobie QC, Garden Court Chambers
Piers Marquis, Doughty Street Chambers
Paul Heron, Public Interest Law Centre
25th April 2022  

 

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