
Police spies infiltrated UK leftwing groups for decades - crunchiebones
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/15/undercover-police-spies-infiltrated-uk-leftwing-groups-for-decades
======
pjc50
Disappointed, but not surprised. I'd have expected the numbers to be higher.
See also the murder of Pat Finucane:
[https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-
news/mi5-can-a...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/mi5-can-
authorise-agents-to-commit-crimes-tribunal-
told-1.3651806#.W7cihCcrJj0.twitter)

However some of those groups actually are dangerous; not just Combat 18 but
also
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Huntingdon_Animal_Cruelty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Huntingdon_Animal_Cruelty)
(surprising campaign of terror for which several were jailed)

There is also the question (as with some of the FBI anti-terrorist actions) as
to how far the undercover agents were actually the driving conspirators.

Compare and contrast with the reports that the Electoral Commission have
passed a file to the Metropolitan police about the conduct of various
organisations in the Brexit referendum .. which the police are not yet
investigating.

~~~
cstross
Two points of clarification (for other readers):

1\. Combat 18 is a neo-Nazi terrorist organization associated with several
murders, not a left-wing political campaigning group.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18)

2\. Undercover Police officers in related animal rights groups (the ALF,
rather than SHAC) have been identified as suspects in fire-bombings, and
accused of perjury during trials for terrorism offenses, for which those
groups were blamed:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_(undercover_police...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lambert_\(undercover_police_officer\)#Accusations_of_arson_and_perjury)

... It's hard to know how much of the animal rights movement's reputation for
terrorism was based on their actual actions rather than police agent
provocateurs, because police cover-ups are still on-going. And this point also
applies to SHAC: we know about the police undercover agents who have been
exposed, but by definition we don't know about the ones whose identities
remain secret — in particular, whether the Met/ACPO infiltrated SHAC and
actively incited their more outrageous actions, as they did with other groups.

~~~
DanBC
For people who want to read the literature / propaganda / ephemera of the time
there was a magazine called Arkangel which has some back issues available on
the web.

There was considerable debate about whether fire bombing was a non-violent
action: the aim was not to harm people, but to cause massive water damage
(from the sprinkler systems) to shops and their stock. Other people said you
know violence when you see it, and burning down a building is a violent act.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(magazine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_\(magazine\))

------
chrisseaton
Some of these groups have a publicly stated goal of overthrowing British
democracy - doesn't seem unreasonable for them to be monitored by the police
and security services.

~~~
113
Why?

As long as they're not doing it violently.

~~~
chrisseaton
They say they want to 'seize control' of the government institutions using
'mass action' instead of voting. They aren't talking about asking nicely are
they, come on.

~~~
throwaway8689
Mass action is a form of democracy, if the mass is large enough. It doesn't
have to mean violence.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Mass action is a form of democracy, if the mass is large enough.

That cannot be what they are referring to - if the mass was a majority then
they could use voting. They say they can't use voting, which implies to me
they're planning some kind of minority undemocratic action.

~~~
dragonwriter
> if the mass was a majority then they could use voting

In a system with perfect proportionality rather having systematic
misrepresentation, sure; actual representative democracies tend to have
structural biases favoring particular interests which means opposition to
those interests often cannot succeed through voting merely with majority
support, while the favored interest can remain dominant with a sufficient
minority of support.

See, e.g., the US government, where this was dramatically demonstrated in the
2016 Presidential election, but has a more consistent impact in the federal
legislature, particularly the Senate, and in the _de facto_ “Constitutional
legislature”—the body that can amend the Constitution—where, as in the Sense,
voting is by State.

As such, a mere majority in the US favoring certain positions cannot succeed
by voting alone.

~~~
geezerjay
> In a system with perfect proportionality rather having systematic
> misrepresentation, sure; actual representative democracies tend to have
> structural biases favoring particular interests which means opposition to
> those interests often cannot succeed through voting merely with majority
> support

In other words, small parties with little to no support can't just dictate
their will onto the majority.

That's a feature, not a bug.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In other words, small parties with little to no support can't just dictate
> their will onto the majority.

No, exactly the opposite: a minority that is structurally favored by the
biases in the system of representation, _can_ dictate their will over the
objections of the majority.

~~~
geezerjay
> No, exactly the opposite: a minority

Nonsense. In democratic republics, which are the norm in the West, the people
pick their representatives and both the legislative and executive branches are
determined by that vote.

It makes no sense to try to turn around the facts to pretend that democratic
governments are not voted in by the majority but instead by a minority. That's
absurd and has no bearing in reality.

~~~
dragonwriter
> In democratic republics, which are the norm in the West, the people pick
> their representatives and both the legislative and executive branches are
> determined by that vote.

And in real, rather than idealized, democratic republics, there are often
systematic distortions in representation favoring certain identifiable
interests, allowing those interests to attain controlling power with a
minority of the vote.

As stated above, the US federal government provides a good example of this.

> It makes no sense to try to turn around the facts to pretend that democratic
> governments are not voted in by the majority but instead by a minority.

Both the current President of the US and the current Senate majority were
voted in by outright minorities. The House majority was voted in by a
plurality, but still the majority faction is substantially overepresented even
if you consider only the ratio of major party votes.

> That's absurd and has no bearing in reality.

The current US government may be absurd, but it is absolutely reality, and not
unique among democratic republics in history in being elected despite not
commanding majority support in the electorate.

Denying reality isn't productive.

------
throwaway8689
There was quite lot of politically motivated property destruction over that
period. Often by people in tight groups that would be hard to infiltrate.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/pounds-15m-hawk-attack-
wo...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/pounds-15m-hawk-attack-women-
freed-1331285.html)

------
awongh
the new yorker did a long piece on one specific case:
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/the-spy-who-
lo...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/the-spy-who-loved-me-2)

quite interesting and sad

------
mindcrash
Left wing _and_ right wing groups I might add. The police and/or intelligence
agencies spy on everything and everyone considered to be a threat to the
State. Including possibly you, right now, reading this comment using those
mass surveillance laws used to combat "terrorism".

And why they don't take any action against these groups you might ask? That's
because some of these are _very_ useful in regard to controlling the populus
(e.g. threat of violence leading to self-censorship) and enabling the removal
of more and more liberties.

You might think that people managed to learn how ruthless, vile cretins like
Hitler and Stalin actually got to their positions of power, and how they
expanded them. But nope. We are just waiting for, and in some cases actively
enabling, all that shit to happen all over again.

It is almost like human civilization keeps going round and round in a
perpetuation of hate, abuse, vileness and misery. And it's so sad given the
fact that we actually _have_ EVERYTHING we need to destroy this cycle once and
for all.

------
forapurpose
Do they also infiltrate similarly dangerous right-wing groups? I meant that as
a serious question, not as a Socratic way to make a point. I don't recall that
being reported but maybe it's due to my poor memory, or maybe it just hasn't
been discovered.

~~~
yardie
Infiltrate? Quite a few are card carrying members.

~~~
geezerjay
> Infiltrate? Quite a few are card carrying members.

Do you believe no policeman was ever a card carrying member of a
communist/socialist organization?

~~~
yardie
>Do you believe no policeman was ever a card carrying member of a
communist/socialist organization?

If they exist I haven't met them.

I have met far more who have certain ideas on race, religion, and distrust of
socialist. They aren't afraid to share with you how things were dealt with
"back then."

------
amarant
this seemed a lot worse until the paragraf describing one of the infiltrated
parties as "a Trotskyite party of a few thousand members that advocates the
abolition of capitalism through revolutionary means"

It doesn't seem entirely out of place for the police to infiltrate a group
that openly instigates revolution.

The article also goes into repeated occurrences of romance between undercover
agents and members of the infiltrated organizations. sounds like pretty
awkward family reunions.

~~~
vidarh
They've infiltrated the SWP for nearly 40 years and yet have found no evidence
of the organisation itself pushing violence or other crimes.

It doesn't seem entirely out of place to keep an eye on them. It does seem a
bit odd to consider there to be a need to infiltrate them continuously for ~40
years when neither your infiltration or their actions shows evidence they're a
threat. You'd think after a couple of years they'd scale things back. Keep an
eye, maybe check in on them if they see worrying signs.

It's the amount of resources put into tiny, mostly ineffectual, fringe groups
that is most staggering. I mean, in a way these groups should be flattered
that they were taken so much more seriously than their activity would suggest.

~~~
Joeboy
Actually though, the SWP isn't a tiny ineffectual fringe group. They (or their
satellite organizations) been key organizers of pretty much every big lefty
demo for the last 2-3 decades. Back when I was more involved with this sort of
thing, we used to find the SWP's enthusiasm for appropriating other people's
issues quite annoying. _This_ is why I find the extent of police involvement
in the SWP rather startling.

~~~
vidarh
They were good at making noise and hijacking attention and demonstrations. But
they were still tiny, and they're tinier by far now (as for 2014, some ex-
members estimated there was a core of 200 or so left, after the Comrade Delta
mess caused multiple splits). And they achieved very little: As you point out
they were enthusiastically appropriating other peoples issues. They rarely did
much of any consequence on their own.

~~~
Joeboy
They have / had tentacles in lots of lefty causes, which I would speculate is
what made them interesting to the police. I think they largely managed this by
being fairly well resourced and organized, notably they organized transport to
demos for huge numbers of people. I haven't really kept up with the gossip
recently though. I imagine things like the recent Stop Trump demo had a lot of
input from SWP or former-SWP people, but I don't really know who organizes
what these days.

