LORD TEBBIT'S 'FRIENDS IN THE UNIONS'

QC for blacklisted workers calls on Lord Tebbit to appear before SPYCOPS PUBLIC INQUIRY

Imran Khan QC, acting on behalf of the Blacklist Support Group has written to Sir John Mitting, chair of the public inquiry into undercover policing calling for Lord Norman Tebbit to be called to give oral evidence. The formal request comes after Tebbit revealed that when he was Secretary of State for Employment in the Thatcher government, he received regular briefings about trade unions from Special Branch, which included such detail as where individual union members went on holiday. The frank admission came during a parliamentary meeting hosted by Richard Burgon and the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance (COPS).

Tebbit also told MPs and peers attending the Zoom meeting that he often held private meetings with 'friends in the unions' including the General Secretary of the EETPU electricians union to discuss how to deal with leftwing union activists. After the meeting Lord Tebbit told The Times:

“I got briefings from Special Branch on what some of the hard-left, communist-style leaders were up to. But I got far more briefings from my friends who were trade union leaders. Friends of mine who were trade union leaders would come to see me at the Department of Employment by arrangement. They would drive, be admitted straight into the underground car park and take the lift straight to my office, so that nobody would know that they had seen me.”

Dave Smith, secretary of the Blacklist Support Group commented on the letter sent to Sir John Mitting:

"We demand that Tebbit be called to give evidence to the public inquiry about these Special Branch briefings. If any official government or union documentation relating to these meetings at a Ministerial office exist, we demand that they are disclosed to the inquiry. Just as importantly, Tebbit should be forced to name his 'friends in the unions' who grassed up union members to a Conservative government Minister. Any union leaders or officials who colluded with a Tory government against other union members should be publicly exposed. Mitting has repeatedly allowed police officers and their managers to avoid giving evidence to this supposedly public inquiry, but any last minute excuses for Tebbit not to give evidence will be totally unacceptable. If Tebbit is healthy enough to sit in the country's upper legislative chamber, he is fit enough to give evidence at a public inquiry".

Previous press coverage of Tebbit's comments: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/special-branch-spied-on-union-leaders-norman-tebbit-admits-xv20rkmzw https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/tebbit-lifts-lid-government-involvement-spying-trade-unionists https://www.union-news.co.uk/thatcher-minister-tebbit-admits-receiving-special-branch-reports-about-union-activists/ https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5baz3/police-spies-told-a-minister-where-left-wing-trade-unionists-go-on-holiday https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2021/march/norman-tebbit-s-admission-about-government-involvement-in-spying-on-trade-unionists-must-be-fully-investigated/

Blacklist Support Group

‘Little faith’ in spy cops inquiry getting to truth

By Zaki Sarraf Justice Gap reporter 3 November 2020 |

The public inquiry into undercover policing Inquiry began yesterday five years after the then Home Secretary Theresa May announced the inquiry. It will examine the contribution that undercover policing has made to tackling crime, how it is supervised, regulated and the effect on individuals involved. The inquiry will also examine whether individuals may have been wrongly convicted in cases involving so called spy cops.

Bindmans Solicitors are acting for a number of the core participants. ‘Our clients have waited more than five years for this Inquiry to commence,’ the firm said. ‘During this time the Inquiry has granted anonymity to most of the undercover police officers being called to give evidence, in some cases to their cover names as well as their real names.’

‘Those of us who have been following the Undercover Policing Inquiry go into the start of proceedings today with very little faith in the process,’ commented core participant Tom Fowler. ‘The huge concessions to police anonymity that that has been partly responsible for the delays that have taken five years for the Inquiry to get started gave made sure of that. We will however be watching proceedings closely in the hope that some droplets of truth will sneak out. Myself and others will be providing live updates over the duration of the hearings, using the #spycops hashtag on Twitter.’

Theresa May’s announcement of the judge-led inquiry in 2015 was in response to Mark Ellison QC’s review which sought to answer whether there was evidence of corruption in the Metropolitan Police during the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence; whether the Met had evidence of corruption it did not disclose to the Macpherson Inquiry into the murder; and whether there was inappropriate undercover activity directed at the grieving Lawrence family.

The Ellison review found undercover officers being deployed to influence and smear the Lawrence family campaign whilst the Macpherson inquiry was ongoing. Specific allegations by police officers of corruption against other officers were ignored by their superiors and not brought to the attention of Macpherson; key evidence was shredded by the Police; and undercover officers failed to correct evidence given in court which they knew was wrong. In March 2014, Theresa May May described its findings ‘profoundly shocking’ and ‘of grave concern’.

The Lawrence case is one example of undercover policing and there are over 230 core participants in the UCPI including individuals that have been duped into relationships with undercover officers, families of victims of murders, politicians, trade unionists and more – a full list of the core participants can be found here. Sixty-nine officers’ names have been published from the Special Demonstration Squad to enable members of the public to determine whether they were affected by undercover policing and come forward with evidence.

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Unions meet Sir John Mitting on blacklisting!

On Wednesday 11th July, blacklisted workers and lawyers representing the FBU and UNITE the union held a 2 hour private meeting with Sir John Mitting, the judge in charge of the undercover policing public inquiry. There are legal restrictions on what can be disclosed about the discussions. 

Dave Smith, Blacklist Support Group co-secretary commented:

'We had a frank exchange of views about the future direction of the public inquiry. We hope that Mitting is now fully aware of our serious concerns about a number of issues that we feel will impede the truth about the activities of the UK's undercover political police units being fully investigated. We continue to have fundamental disagreements with many of the decisions being taken by the Chair and believe that the Home Secretary should set up a panel that will allow for a greater understanding of issues such as sex, race and class bias that are at the heart of the public inquiry. However, for a number of our specific concerns relating to state spying on trade unions, we were given assurances that we view as positive. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating and until we see concrete action rather than fine words, our view of the public inquiry remains highly skeptical.'  

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNcgrNs6pB8

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

Cosmetics chain closes campaign alleging intimidation by ex-cops!

 

Display highlighting misconduct of undercover police spies

A campaign to highlight the misconduct of undercover police spies, launched by the cosmetics retailer 'Lush', has been withdrawn after just one week after the company alleged that some staff in its 104 stores, had been threatened and intimidated by former police officers.

The retailer who removed the displays from its store windows last Thursday, said it needed to protect its staff for safety reasons and that some of its branches had removed posters following, "intimidation of our shop staff from ex-police officers and unhelpful tweets from those in high office."

It has been alleged that people disliking the campaign have been going into stores and intimidating staff to force them to take down the display. Yet many members of the public have supported the campaign. Two former wives of undercover police officers offered their support as well as the son of a police spy who abandoned him and his mother.

The Lush campaign was criticised by the home secretary, Sajid Javid, for being anti-police, poorly judged and potentially damaging to large numbers of officers who had nothing to do with the alleged wrongdoing. 

In a letter to the Guardian, the two former 'spycop' wives, said the Lush campaign had done more to publicise the issue in a weekend than a public inquiry had done in three years.

Costing more than £10m so far, the inquiry into undercover policing led by Sir John Mitting, was due to conclude this year but will not hear any evidence until June 2019.

A spokeswoman for 'Police Spies Out of Lives', said: "We condemn the sort of threats that some Lush staff have experienced in the last few days."

David Smith of the Blacklist Support Group (BSG) said that the displays had "been blanked out due to threats to staff." He added: "All workers are entitled to a safe working environment - intimidation, abuse and threats, are totally unacceptable."

Freedom Press now participant in Spy-Cop Inquiry

 Police plant edited the anarchist newspaper Freedom
by Brian Bamford

Spy-cop Roger Pearce aka Roger Thorley

ON the 20th, March 2018 Sir John Mitting Chairman, Undercover Policing Inquiry, designated Freedom Press as a core participant in Category K of the purpose of the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

The 'person' categorised as 'Friends of Freedom Press' ('Freedom Press') did previously apply to Sir Christopher Pitchford, when he was the previous Chairman of the same Inquiry in October 2015, Pitchford then stated that he would keep under review the application of any person to be designated as a core participant who was not then so designated by him.

He at that time, declined to designate them because, on the information which he then had, it was unlikely that they were relying on a direct and significant role in the subject matter of the Inquiry

On the 23 January 2018, Saunders Solicitors Limited again wrote to the Inquiry to ask whether Sir John Mitting would now entertain a fresh application for core participant status by Freedom Press. 

Having considered this new request last week, Sir John decided: 

' I will designate Freedom Press as a core participant in Category K.  I do so on the basis of material which Sir Christopher [Pitchford] would not have taken into account when making his original ruling: Operation Herne interview notes, which suggest that HN85 became editor of Freedom Press in Whitechapel and in that capacity wrote virulent anti-police articles.  Accordingly, Freedom Press did play a direct and significant role in the subject matter of the Inquiry and it is appropriate that they should be designated as a core participant.' 

Exclusive report on 'Spychief infiltration'

 On the 24th, March, the Freedom website carried an unsigned article which it described as an 'exclusive' entitled 'The Met spy chief who infiltrated Freedom Press'.   In this post the Freedom Press author wrote:
'Earlier this week it was disclosed that Freedom Press would now be considered a core participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry, following official confirmation that Pearce had operated as “Roger Thorley,” a former writer for Freedom in the 1970s and ’80s.'

The writer, who may well himself be a solicitor, says that after a comprehensive investigation of the Freedom archives and consultation with old comrades it is revealed that 'Freedom can confirm that Pearce, writing under the moniker R.T, penned a series of articles over the course of the period 1980-81 and then joined a fact-finding mission to Belfast, before disappearing from sight.'

Special Branch man becomes Freedom 'editor'

This weekend I spoke to several present and former members of the 'Friends of Freedom Press' (F. of F.P.), and they all say they didn't know Roger Thorley in the early 1980s.  I haven't as yet spoken to the present secretary of F. of F.P., Stephen Sorba, who may well have been around, but I was writing for Freedom in the late 1979s and early 1980s, when I believe my friend the carpenter Peter Turner was still associated with the paper.  Barry Woodling has just told me that he's seen reports and articles written by me in March 1980, after I had reported for the old Syndicalist Workers Federation (SWF) on the V Congress of the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) in Madrid, which took place in December 1979.



What is so noticeably about the old issues of Freedom edited by the police spy and future head of Special Branch, Roger Thorley/Pearce*, is that it is clear the quality of Freedom has declined immensely since the 1980s.  The analysis of the last signed article of Roger-the-Dodger suggests he is so insightful about the situation in northern Ireland, that it can only produce nostalgia in those of us knew the old Freedom.  The current production, whether on the website or in the occasional hard copies of Freedom, are so full of cookbook thinking, cliques and childish slogans as to reduce one to tears.



The author of Freedom's socalled exclusive report writing this Saturday says:
'What can be confirmed is that when inquiry head Mitting defined Pearce’s writing as “virulently anti-police” he wasn’t exaggerating — and it was specifically in favour of the IRA. In one article, Prisoners of Politics (Vol 41, No. 22, Nov 8th 1980) the editors debate “R.T” over his demand that IRA detainees should have political prisoner status, noting that “all prisoners are political”.'



Meanwhile, the undercover policemen seem to have had a beano engaged in what my Dad use to call 'Bobbies Jobs'; employed in cushy numbers reporting on the activities and miscellaneous tittle-tattle of anarchists and trade unionists.  But with a job like that of Roger Pearce, drafting columns and perhaps editorials for Freedom in the late 1970s or early 1980s, it must have given him a glorious opportunity to hone his skills in spy craft; even with London Greenpeace it has been said that Bobby Lambert actually wrote the leaflet on McDonald's that ultimately led to the famous libel case..  I suppose that the conscientious policeman in his determination to do a decent job, will actually get a thrill out of writing and polishing up articles using anarchist analytical tools.  Both Roger-the-Dodger Pearce and Bobby Lambert seem to have been street-wise engaging in their workman-like operations, and moreover to have had a good deal more talent than many of the anarchists that they were spying on.

*   According to the website 'powerbase' which does public interest investigatuons -  Roger Pearce was appointed Director of Intelligence (SO11) on 2 November 1998 and held it until 4 March 2003.^[13] In 1999, Pearce was appointed head of Special Branch (SO12) and held both posts concurrently until his retirement in 2003.^[5][4][14] In this latter role he also had oversight of the Covert Operations unit SO10.^[15]. As Head of Special Branch he was:^[16] ... responsible for surveillance and undercover operations against terrorists and extremists, the close protection of government ministers and visiting VIPs, and other highly sensitive assignments... 

 

https://freedomnews.org.uk/roger-pearce-infiltrated-freedom-press/

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