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‘Spycops’ inquiry ignores state action and spying on trade unions [1]
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Date: 2023-02
In 1977, the Daily Express ran a front page with the headline ‘The Secret Demo Squad, Special Branch men to join pickets’, writing: “The undercover men already have thick dossiers on extremists. The authorities are anxious to establish whether there are links with political organisations whose aim is solely to disrupt industry.”
Unfortunately, this clipping is not among the files disclosed by UCPI, which decided not to investigate Grunwick in any detail.
Although the dispute featured as a major public order event in the SDS’s 1977 annual report, the UCPI disclosed only six reports about the strike (the Grunwick strikers chose not to participate in the inquiry, so it is not required to release more).
It’s a missed chance for the UCPI, which is investigating only those events and issues for which ‘core participants’ to the inquiry were spied on. It’s also unnecessary, as plenty of material on Grunwick is already in the public domain, including documents in the National Archives and formerly secret files released through Freedom of Information requests that would have allowed the UCPI to analyse Special Branch’s threat assessments.
The National Archives files show that reports about Grunwick, based on intelligence gathered by undercover police officers, went all the way up to the home secretary of the day and sometimes even the prime minister.
Relevant state documents disclosed to the Undercover Research Group through FOI requests but not disclosed by the UCPI | Solomon Hughes
In a 1974 meeting with home secretary Roy Jenkins, Labour MPs including John Prescott raised the issue of Special Branch spying on unions. They asked for an inquiry into infiltration and the exchange of information about potential troublemakers between police and employers.
Documents disclosed by UCPI show Jenkins denied the police spying, telling the MPs: “There was no question of Special Branch infiltration into trade unions directly or indirectly”. Prescott countered that “he felt sure there was such infiltration”. He was right.
After a follow-up meeting between Jenkins and MI5 head Michael Hanley, Home Office civil servant James Waddell summarised the actions needed to address the concerns. He strongly advised the prime minister, Edward Heath, that “we ought not to be too sweeping in anything said about infiltration”, explaining that Special Branch (in addition to MI5) did indeed infiltrate subversive bodies and that “denials about their interest in the unions may be disbelieved”.
Instead of addressing the MPs’ fears, Waddell advised the home secretary to try and avoid further leaks. He said: “In view of the sensitivity of the subject, it would be as well to remind Special Branch officers about the particular need for care and discretion in the industrial field.”
The Security Service would indeed send a circular letter to all Chief Constables in the UK in late May that year. It included a warning not to share information with anyone outside the police.
As deputy under-secretary at the Home Office, Waddell was responsible for the police, public order and security; he was involved in setting up the SDS and signing off the unit’s annual funding until his retirement in 1975. He also chaired several secret Cabinet committees that worked to counter “subversion in public life”.
Blacklisting practices
While the official policy quoted to MPs and the media was that covert intelligence was never shared with employers, Home Office practice was often completely the opposite.
National Archives documents show that in 1973, when the chairman of tractor maker Massey-Ferguson asked a senior civil servant at the Home Office for details about possible troublemakers at his Midlands plant, both the head of MI5 and senior civil servants initially opposed the idea.
Waddell advised that “the general policy of not giving information from official sources… is well-established”, adding that “ministers have generally accepted that the most we should do is refer the enquiring industrialists to unofficial sources like the Economic League.”
He added: “I think the feeling has been that anything in the way of an official blacklist might both hamper [redacted] and put the government of the day at risk of attack for interfering in the employment field.”
But after a fortnight of lobbying, the prime minister himself, Edward Heath, interfered, saying: “Mr Powell of Massey-Ferguson is too serious a person to be dismissed with a reference to the Economic League.” He added: “There is a case for being prepared to give some degree of oral briefing in trustworthy cases”. A meeting between the industrialist and the Home Office was duly arranged.
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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/undercover-policing-inquiry-spycops-trade-union-spying-government-state/
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