What do the Socialist Workers Party, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a small anarchist bookshop in East London have in common? They were all infiltrated by undercover police officers who spied on thousands of political activists on behalf of a secret unit within the Metropolitan Police.
The Special Branch unit, known as the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), carried out extensive surveillance of mostly left-wing groups in London. A long-running inquiry is now hearing evidence that the undercover officers had a political mandate.
The SDS deployed long-term undercover officers to embed themselves within a wide range of organisations, from socialist and anarchist collectives to anti-war, anti-racism, animal rights and women’s liberation movements. These ‘spycops’ lived as activists for years, gathering intelligence for the police and the Secret Service. The covert operations are now in the public spotlight through the ongoing Undercover Policing Inquiry, which is already in its tenth year.
The inquiry is chaired by a retired judge, Sir John Mitting, who has already concluded that the SDS operations should have been ‘brought to a rapid end’ in the 1970s, almost as soon as they started. He cited a long litany of abuses – from unlawful trespassing and deceptive personal relationships to the use of deceased children’s identities to build cover stories.
The latest phase of the inquiry, which examines the period from 1983 to 1992, is giving us even greater insights into the scope and impact of this political surveillance. Shocking revelations have emerged about the uses to which the undercover officers were put.
In a statement to the inquiry at the start of July 2024, the Metropolitan Police reiterated its apology to the women who were deceived into sexual relationships with undercover officers. The force also admitted that it was ‘particularly indefensible that many of the anti-racism campaigns’ that were spied on ‘were seeking justice for members of the Black and Asian communities in London and were attempting to hold the police itself accountable’ for the discriminatory policing of those communities.
The Met apologised unreservedly for the surveillance, accepting its ‘corrosive effect… on public trust’ and that it amounted to ‘unacceptable political policing’.
Mass movements against nuclear war
A telling example is the widespread infiltration of the British peace movement. At least five undercover officers spied on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1980s. They focused on small groups across London, gathering intelligence about individuals and their political views. Information was passed on to the Secret Service and could have contributed to concerted attempts to discredit the massive anti-nuclear movement.
Directions to spy on peace campaigners at the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp may have come directly from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who wanted to know ‘what the Greenham women were doing’.
Evidence given to the Inquiry by CND’s secretary Kate Hudson in a day-long hearing came down to this point: CND activists were not subversive (whatever definition one would find for it), nor did they present a threat to public order. Their infiltration by undercover police was ‘for political purposes: because of CND’s mass support, because its work was powerfully informing public opinion, which in turn could affect how people voted.’ In the 1983 general election, the leader of the opposition Michael Foot had stood on a manifesto of nuclear disarmament.
Troubling justifications
Testimony from former undercover officer Roger Pearce has provided a rare insider’s perspective, especially as Pearce went on to become the head of Special Branch. He acknowledged infiltrating an anarchist editorial collective that published the Freedom newspaper, even going as far as to author anti-police articles under his undercover persona. This raises troubling questions about officers posing as journalists and influencing readerships.
Pearce has long sought to defend the undercover tactics and said that he wanted to make ‘no moral judgement all’ about male officers who had deceived women into sexual relationships during their deployments. He has argued that using the personal details of dead children for cover identities, while ‘distasteful’, was ultimately ‘for Queen and country and peace and democracy.’
In his evidence to the inquiry, Pearce made allegations of serious criminal activity that would have justified his own undercover deployment. He talked of bomb plots and assassination discussions, by named political activists. While he wasn’t able to substantiate the claims, in at least one case he accused a prominent activist of being part of a group of anarchists who drove to Aldershot to ‘recce bomb sites’. Questioned about the claims during an evidence hearing, Pearce retracted the accusation and said that it had been a mistake.
While Pearce admitted the details were based on hearsay, the public airing of these claims has left some activists feeling their reputations have been unfairly tarnished.
Can the inquiry rely on such unsubstantiated allegations of violence and subversion in the accounts of former officers? I think not, and there are enough contradictions in their accounts to suggest that officers exaggerated the value of their reporting in order to continue their ‘James Bond’ lifestyle.
To test the officer’s evidence, however, the inquiry needs to cooperate with those witnesses who were the targets of surveillance. But their full participation has been hindered by the late disclosure of documents, the anonymity granted to scores of former officers and limited funds for legal representation. It amounts, they have argued, to ‘a deliberate attempt to silence the non-state core participants’.
Some of the obstacles are due to the apparent police unwillingness to cooperate fully. The Metropolitan Police’s initial strategy of neither confirming, nor denying that any of the deployments happened has now been abandoned, but the inquiry still has limited powers to compel former officers to give evidence.
As the inquiry races to complete its work by 2026, core participants are concerned that it will miss vital evidence and fail to scrutinise the testimony given by former officers. With limited time remaining, they worry that ‘justice rushed is justice denied’. They are now calling on the new Home Secretary to commit to a thorough and public investigation into the subversion of democratic expression by undercover policing.
Raphael Schlembach is Principal Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Brighton.
Spycops by Raphael Schlembach is available on the Bristol University Press website. Order here for £27.99.
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