
London Metropolitan Police admits role in blacklisting construction workers - cogs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43507728
======
pjc50
This is another one of those stories that ought to be shocking but is unlikely
to move the dial.

While the UK police are generally not that corrupt, Special Branch enjoy
secrecy and closeness to power, which they interpret as a license to commit
crimes against leftwing groups they consider anti-government. There's a long
history of this from complicity in murders in Northern Ireland to present day
highly intrusive surveillance against demonstrators.

> Evidence given to Parliament suggested that one undercover officer who
> infiltrated Mr Smith's union was Mark "Cassidy" Jenner, a member of Scotland
> Yard's now disbanded Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

That's the Mark Jenner who also spent years having a relationship with the
environmental activists he was spying on, the subject of a separate set of
court cases and inquiries.

See also Hillsborough and the Miner's Strike.

(Oh, and disrupting the possibility of effective union action has been a
priority of the government since the days of Thatcher)

~~~
lmm
> This is another one of those stories that ought to be shocking but is
> unlikely to move the dial.

No. This is an outrage and the British people will rightly be outraged. The
effects of this will and should be felt in the next election and beyond. Your
sophisticated world-weary cynicism is counterproductive.

~~~
pjc50
I'd like to be wrong, but I suspect that outside of people who are already in
the labour movement, nobody will be talking about this next week let alone the
next election. How much of a role did SDS play at the last election, when that
was already known about?

It's been ""known"" for years that Special Branch helped murder people in
Northern Ireland, and outside the republican community and the small subset of
mainland "left" that pays attention, it makes no difference.

[https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-
analysis/how...](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/how-
special-branch-betrayed-the-police-34855866.html)

(Far too many of the "british people" read rightwing press outlets which will
minimise this and some other issue, probably Brexit, to rile up their readers
to demand more not less authoritarianism)

~~~
thinkingemote
The same police were doing the same things when Labour was in government.
Also, Labour this time around want more money for the police, and we wouldn't
really call Labour anti authoritarian, would we?

"The government always wins the election" is a very typical British saying and
quite true.

------
cogs
Apparently this was on the BBC front page this morning, but somehow I blinked
and missed it.

I don't have any trade union axe to grind, but I'm pretty shocked both by the
security services behaviour, and by the lack of coverage this is getting.

Whatever your opinion on trade unions, it's a pretty fundamental threat to
democracy when the security services monitor legal behaviour and can destroy
someone's livelihood for behaviour they disapprove of.

And .. why isn't this on the BBC News front page all day? I get most of my
news there, and now I worry how many other democracy-shaking stories I might
have missed.

~~~
ianopolous
The BBC is notoriously biased for the government. I stopped reading anything
from them after their appalling coverage of the Snowden revelations.

~~~
alex_hitchins
bbc.gov.uk

~~~
alex_hitchins
The BBC is a Statutory corporation run also by Royal Charter.

------
aoeudnhtaeun4n
> It uncovered a list of more than 3,000 workers - which in some instances
> also included details of personal relationships and their political activity
> as well as their trade union links on building sites

This is what I think the average person doesn't understand about pervasive
surveillance. This is the kind of shit that it causes. When the government has
to know who you're sleeping with, where or whether you pray, who you associate
with, etc., it always ends up with this kind of shit. Usually worse.

~~~
jessaustin
Eventually, much worse. When civil rights are squandered now, they are
squandered for those to come as well. The converse is also the case.

------
jaweb
Worth also noting - there are strong signs that this blacklisting is still
continuing, despite the court cases (although not necessarily with involvement
from the police) -
[https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/blacklistin...](https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/blacklisting-
battles-continue)

------
alkonaut
They were blacklisted because they were organized?

Aren't almost all construction workers organized?

~~~
dazc
No, since most construction companies in the UK do not directly employ
construction personnel. Many work indirectly though employment agencies or as
'self-employed' sub-contractors.

The blacklist is a legacy of different times when this wasn't so.

------
Spearchucker
Just moved from London to the continent because of Brexit. And it's amazing
how quickly I stopped giving a damn about stories like this one since the
move. I pity the victims though.

~~~
cat199
... yes, certainly there are no elites scheming in concert to illegally
protect their self interest on the continent.

------
squozzer
>"We were told, things like that don't happen here."

The perfect epitaph for Western Civilization.

