Ahead of the Undercover Policing Inquiry hearings beginning next week, many people are dismayed by the Inquiry’s prioritising of the protection of perpetrators’ privacy above the right of victims and the public to know the truth. There seems to be little hope of the Inquiry providing the level of transparency and accountability that we all deserve.

A significant proportion of the 200 victims designated as core participants have signed this general statement on the issue of undercover political policing, calling attention back on to the key issues:

1. In 1968, following huge demonstrations in London’s Grosvenor Square (and around the world) against the widely-condemned Vietnam War, British police set up a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) to monitor and undermine such street protests.

Since that time, over 1,000 groups campaigning in the UK for a better society and better world have been systematically spied upon, infiltrated, or otherwise targeted by secret and unaccountable political police units.

2. This targeting has included over 140 highly paid police spies living long term as ‘activists’ engaging in the everyday activities of groups and campaigns for equality and justice, for environmental protection, for community and trade union empowerment, and for international solidarity; for rights for women, black and ethnic minorities, workers, LGBTQ people, and for animals; and also targeting those campaigning against war, racism, sexism, corporate power, legal repression, and police oppression and brutality.

Such groups and movements have comprised many millions of people throughout the UK who want to make the world better, fairer and more sustainable for everyone. Thanks to their efforts, many of the ideas spread by such groups have now become mainstream opinion and some campaigns and rights sought eventually resulted in legal and other formal recognition by society.

3. Yet it appears that almost any group that stood up to make a positive difference in questioning or challenging the establishment has been or could have potentially been considered a legitimate target by the UK’s secret political policing units. Any claims that the UK police are a non-political institution are therefore clearly incorrect.

4. These secret policing activities went far beyond investigating what was said in meetings. Individuals within or associated with those campaign groups – most of which had an open membership and active involvement based on trust and co-operation – were subjected to intrusions into their personal lives. Thousands of fake ‘friendships’ were developed, exploited and abused by secret police who continuously lied for their own political ends. Many people, especially women, were deceived into intimate and abusive relationships.

Children have been fathered then abandoned, and the identities of deceased children stolen to provide ‘cover’ names. Police spies took part in and actively influenced groups and activities, and there have been very many arrests and victims of miscarriages of justice as a result. Family campaigns, people seeking justice for loved ones killed by police, were deliberately undermined by these units.

5. To bug a phone is recognised as a controversial breach of someone’s human rights and so police have to apply for a warrant. We’re generally opposed to that and note the public outrage over the phone-hacking scandal a few years ago. However, to hack people’s LIVES is infinitely worse and should be totally unacceptable to everyone.

6. Much of the State response to public anger over these tactics has been to present the spying and the abuses that came with it as an aberration, a mistake, or the fault of rogue officers. We disagree. Based on the evidence, this spying was established and conducted with the full sanction of the State and supported by its apparatus and taxpayer funding. As stated by one of the women deceived into a relationship with a police spy, it was not just a single undercover policeman in her bed but also all those who put the officer in the field and supported them there.

7. No decision about all this was taken in isolation. The Government, senior managers and the handlers may have tried to turn a blind eye to the abuses, or deemed them politically ‘necessary’, but the reality is they were complicit in all of it. They readily accepted the ‘intelligence’ provided, they funded, tasked and oversaw the spycops units, and they set the agenda and ethos according to which these units operated.

8. This had nothing to do with responding to genuine public concern over any real and imminent serious violent threats to public safety and lives. The groups represented in this Inquiry were not terrorist organisations, but were groups pushing for positive social change in an overwhelmingly public and open way. By targeting these groups the police were demonstrating unacceptable and ongoing institutional discrimination, racism, sexism and anti-democratic action, including industrial-scale breaches of laws and charters that protect basic human rights and the right to protest.

9. Over 100 of the Inquiry’s Core Participants summed up the problem here in a previous Collective Statement on 17th October 2017: ‘For us, this Inquiry is about political policing to undermine groups and organisations campaigning for a better society and world.’

10. This police bias was clearly sanctioned at the highest level. We know of no effort to show ‘balance’ by police infiltration or secret targeting of powerful establishment bodies to investigate their crimes and threats to social peace and society.

Such organisations not targeted include greedy and unethical financial corporations, tax-avoiding hedge funds, military elites and their development of weapons of mass destruction, and power-mad establishment political parties. This is despite their continuous and widespread promotion of systematic institutional violence (such as wars, poverty, exploitation of workers, colonialism and environmental destruction) and discrimination on the grounds of race, sex and class, reinforced by Public Relations and manipulation of society for these institutions’ own power and profit.

11. Following the exposure of this undercover policing scandal in 2010, it took five years of investigation, publicity and campaigning by victims and survivors of police infiltration, reinforced by police whistleblowers, for the Government to decide to act. Even then it took the shocking revelations that the family and surviving victim and close friend of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence had themselves been targeted by undercover policing.

12. In July 2015 following widespread public outrage, then-Home Secretary Theresa May tasked the current Undercover Policing Public Inquiry with getting to the truth about this scandal and who authorised it, and recommending action to prevent future police wrong-doing.

13. Since then we have had to suffer five more years of police delays and obstruction. These tactics have resulted in a refusal to release most of the names of the 1,000 organisations spied and reported on, refusal to release the names and photos of most of the police spies, and refusal to release most of the relevant documentation generated by political policing units.

Throughout these five years we and other core participants, despite an imbalance in resources and almost zero access to the documentation held by the police for decades, have worked hard to get the information and justice that we and the wider public are entitled to. We have worked hard and remain determined to bring the whole murky secret political policing operation and its unethical, unacceptable practices into the public spotlight where it belongs.

14. This is supposed to be a public inquiry, but it seems more like a police damage-limitation exercise or cover-up. The hearings are not yet publicly-accessible and nor will they be live-streamed, which is the only way to ensure that the millions of members and supporters of the targeted groups and movements have the opportunity to follow the proceedings as they happen.

15. We call for the Inquiry to recommend that police units targeting campaigners seeking a better society should never have been set up, and should be disbanded in their entirety. We call for full transparency, and release of all the names of the groups targeted, all the names of the police spies, and the full political files police have amassed on such campaign groups.

Only in a spirit of openness and transparency can the grievous police crimes of the past be acknowledged, those responsible at all levels be held accountable, and the many victims start to move forward with the answers they have consistently called for – and are entitled to.

16. When the SDS was formed they aimed to undermine the movements they were spying on. But despite the disgusting police tactics employed, movements for positive change to benefit the public good are still here and growing, and have had many successes on the way. Such movements are needed more than ever in order to address the cumulative and deepening crises into which humanity is being plunged by the current system and its policies. A better world is possible and it’s up to all of us, whoever we are, to ensure support for – and not the undermining of – such movements for positive change.

We endorse the 13 Recommendations discussed and agreed at the People’s Public Inquiry into Secret Political Policing, Conway Hall, London in July 2018:

1. Full disclosure of all names – both cover and real – of officers from the disgraced political police units, accompanied by contemporaneous photographs

2. Release of the names of all groups suspected to have been spied upon

3. Release of all the police’s personal files on activists

4. Extension of the inquiry to all countries where the British spycops are known to have operated

5. The appointment of a diverse panel with experience relevant to victims to assist the chair in making decisions and judgements

6. Inclusion of children and young people who had contact with spycops as Core Participants in the Inquiry

7. Urgent and immediate review of convictions where spycops had involvement in the cases and who misled courts – 50 wrongful convictions have already been overturned and this is likely to be a fraction of the true total

8. The Inquiry must extend its scope to understand political policing and its impact on democracy. This must include a thorough investigation into racist, sexist, anti-working class, anti-democratic behaviour on behalf of the spycops and those that instructed them to operate in this manner. Such political policing and political policing units must be abolished

9. An urgent review into all undercover police activities to investigate whether the bad practice exposed by this Inquiry has been extended to other areas of undercover operations

10. Make available the necessary resources of the judge to be able to do their job in the available time

11. Equalising of resources, the police are spending millions on stonewalling the inquiry, victims have almost nothing

12. Increase the severity of penalties for [police] non-compliance with the Inquiry

13. Investigation into collusion between police and corporate spies

Statement supported by the following Non-State Core Participants in the Undercover Policing Inquiry:

1. Albert Beale
2. Alice Cutler
3. Alice Jelinek
4. ‘AN’
5. Asa Winstanley
6. Atif Choudhury
7. Ben Leamy (aka ‘Mark Morgan’)
8. Ben Stewart
9. Blacklist Support Group
10. Brian Healy
11. Ceri Gibbons
12. Chris Dutton
13. Claire Fauset
14. Claire Hildreth
15. Cllr Shane Collins
16. Dan Glass
17. Danny Chivers
18. Dave Morris
19. Dave Nellist
20. Dave Smith
21. David Kaplowitz
22. Debbie Vincent
23. Dr Donal O’Driscoll
24. Donna McLean
25. Emily Apple
26. Frank Bennett
27. Frank Smith
28. Gabrielle Bosley
29. Gerrah Selby
30. Grainne Gannon
31. Guy Taylor
32. Dr Harry Halpin
33. Hunt Saboteurs Association
34. Indra Donfrancesco
35. Jane Laporte
36. Jason Kirkpatrick
37. John Jordan
38. Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
39. ‘Jane’
40. ‘Jenny’
41. ‘Jessica’
42. Juliet McBride
43. Kate Wilson
44. Ken Livingstone
45. Kirsty Wright
46. Kristina Goodwin-Jones
47. Leila Deen
48. ‘Lindsey’
49. ‘Lisa’
50. Lois Austin
51. London Animal Action
52. London Greenpeace
53. Martin Shaw
54. Martyn Lowe
55. Matt Salusbury
56. ‘MCD’
57. Mel Evans
58. Merrick Cork
59. Reverend Dr Michael Carroll
60. Michael Zeitlin
61. Michael Zeitlin on behalf of Advisory Service for Squatters
62. ‘Monica’
63. Nagakusala Dharmacharin (aka William Frugal)
64. ‘Naomi’
65. Nicola Benge
66. Nicola Benge on behalf of Rhythms of Resistance
67. Olaf Bayer
68. Patrick Gillett
69. Professor Paul Chatterton
70. Paul Gravett
71. Paul Morozzo
72. Robbin Gillett
73. Robert Banbury
74. Robin Lane
75. ‘Sara’
76. Sarah Shoraka
77. Professor Simon Lewis
78. Simon Taylor
79. Spencer Cooke
80. Terence Evans
81. Tom Fowler
82. Tomas Remiarz
83. Trevor Houghton
84. ‘VSP’
85. The Hon. Zoe Young BSc MSc MFA

Despite grave reservations from civil liberties groups and those who have been targeted by Britain’s political secret police, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons yesterday and will now go to the Lords.

It will allow police and a range of other state agencies to self-authorise their agents to commit any crime at all.

This is not about foiling deadly terrorist plots, as laws and agencies already exist to do that. Instead, it will give carte blanche to the spycops to abuse citizens campaigning for social change. It specifically includes protecting ‘economic wellbeing’, which would make strikes, boycotts, blockades and pickets legitimate targets for the most serious crimes.

Human Rights Defeated in Parliament

Labour introduced a number of amendments to limit the powers of the Bill, including outlawing the infiltration of trade unions, deceiving people into sexual relationships, and the use of children in spying. All amendments were defeated. Nonetheless, Labour whipped MPs to abstain.

All Plaid Cymru, SDLP and Green MPs voted against it, as did most SNP and Liberal Democrat MPs and one Conservative, Adam Afriyie.

Additionally, a total of 34 Labour MPs defied their leadership to vote against the Bill. Seven of them had to resign positions to do so; shadow schools minister Margaret Greenwood, shadow Treasury minister Dan Carden, and Parliamentary private secretaries Navendu Mishra, Kim Johnson, Mary Foy, Rachel Hopkins, and Sarah Owen.

Many of us have been shocked by the failure of Labour to oppose this attack on democratic freedoms, personal security, and the labour movement in particular.

Labour MPs Spied On

In March 2015, whistleblower spycop Peter Francis revealed that he had personally seen ten Labour MPs spied on during his time at the Special Demonstration Squad in the 1990s.

The targeted MPs were from the full width of Labour’s political spectrum. Several of them made outraged statements to parliament at the time, demanding to see their files.

Here are a few excerpts from that afternoon (with transcripts and closed captions for accessibility).

Peter Hain

Peter Hain was an active anti-racist campaigner in the 1970s and 1980s before he became a Labour MP in 1991. He was a minister for more than a decade following Labour’s 1997 election victory. He is a core participant at the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

In March 2015, he listed his fellow Labour MPs known to not only have been spied on as earlier campaigners, but having it continue while they were MPs who were supposedly protected by the ‘Wilson Doctrine’, a convention that prohibits the security services from targeting parliamentarians.

Peter Hain:

‘Would he pass on to the Home Secretary my request that she ensures that the remit of the public inquiry she’s announced into the operations of the Special Demonstration Squad includes surveillance of MPs publicly named by Peter Francis when he was an undercover officer between 1990 and 2001?

Is she aware – and is he aware – that aside from myself he saw a Special Branch file on my Right Honourable friend the member for Blackburn [Jack Straw] who was actually Home Secretary for four of these years, and files on my Right Honourable friends the members for Camberwell and Peckham [Harriet Harman] and Lewisham Deptford [Joan Ruddock] and my Honourable friends the members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington [Diane Abbott], Islington North [Jeremy Corbyn], and Bolsover [Dennis Skinner], as well as former colleagues Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Bernie Grant?

Did this monitoring affect our ability as MPs to speak confidentially with constituents? What, if any, impact did that have on our ability to represent them properly? We know for example that the campaign to get justice for Stephen Lawrence, the black teenager murdered by racists, was infiltrated by the SDS [Special Demonstration Squad], and that the police blocked a proper prosecution.

Did police infiltrators in the Lawrence campaign exploit private information shared by constituents or lawyers with any of us as MPs? Will the Home Office in order the police to disclose all relevant information and to each of the MPs affected our complete individual personal registry files?

It is hardly revelatory that the Special Branch had a file on people like me dating back forty years ago to anti-apartheid or Anti-Nazi League activist days because we were seen through a cold war prism as subversive. Even though we vigorously opposed Stalinism that didn’t stop us being lumped together with Moscow sympathisers. But surely the fact that these files were still active for at least ten years whilst we were MPs raises fundamental questions about parliamentary sovereignty and privilege, principles which are vital to our democracy.

It is one thing to have a police file on an MP suspected of crime, child abuse, or even co-operating with terrorism, but quite another to maintain one deriving from campaigns promoting values of social justice, human rights and equal opportunities which are shared by millions of British people. Surely, Mr Speaker, that means travelling down the road that endangers the liberty of us all.’

Jack Straw

The spycops didn’t just target members of the government who were supposedly their superiors, but they specifically spied on Jack Straw when he was Home Secretary and therefore ultimately in charge of the police.

Straw noted the sinister implication that it may well have been motivated by a desire to prevent police being held to account over the institutional racism that enfeebled their investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Jack Straw:

‘Does the Minister accept that if these allegations are correct then we have an extraordinary situation where I as Home Secretary – and for three years from ’97 to 2000, was the police authority for the Metropolitan Police – not only knew nothing whatever about what appears to have been going on within the Metropolitan Police but may also have been subject to unlawful surveillance myself as Home Secretary? That ought to be looked at.

But the trigger, what appears to be the trigger, which is much more serious ought to be looked at, which was my decision, taken against a lot of reluctance by the Metropolitan Police, to establish a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. And what is completely unacceptable was that it appears that elements of the Metropolitan Police were themselves spying on the bereaved family of Stephen Lawrence.’

Joan Ruddock

Like Peter Hain, Joan Ruddock was spied on earlier campaigning work, in her case the peace movement. She was weeks away from stepping down as an MP and lamented the lack of leverage she had to force answers from the police.

Joan Ruddock:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. In 1981 I was elected the chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and two years later an MI5 agent, Cathy Massiter, blew the whistle on the surveillance the phone taps and the collection of Special Branch reports had been undertaken on me. She cited political interference in the service. She said what had happened was illegal and she resigned.

Now, in ’87 I became a member of this House. I took the loyal oath. In 1997 I became a minister. I subsequently signed the Official Secrets Act. How is it that surveillance was carried out on me all of that time? I want to know, and get the Minister to understand, who authorised that surveillance? On what grounds was the surveillance authorised?

And he needs to answer those questions because this is a political issue, it is his responsibility, the Home Office’s and Home Secretary’s responsibility.

Mr Speaker, I am leaving this house. I can do no more than make these points, put in an FoI [Freedom of Information request] to the commissioner, write to the Home Secretary. But frankly, it is something that affects all MPs, and even though I leave he needs to do something and the future government of this House needs to ensure that there is a proper investigation. This should never ever have happened to members of this House.’

David Davis

From the other side of the chamber, Conservative MP David Davis emphasised the fact that spycops is not only a historic scandal, and insisted that the Undercover Policing Inquiry must examine activity right up to the present.

David Davis:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. In the last year there have been a number of revelations about the police improperly hacking into journalists’ telephone calls, improperly breaching legal privilege, and using the information they obtained from breaching legal privilege of suspects, and the government has been very coy about responding to my requests about the current state of the Wilson Doctrine.

If these allegations that have come out now are true, it indicates the Wilson Doctrine was broken in spirit if not in the letter.

Can he make sure that the inquiry actually comes right up to date in terms of what it looks into, and that it is drawn broadly enough to ensure that none of these risks exist today?’

Harriet Harman

Two MPs demanded to see the release of their files; Harriet Harman, then-Duputy Leader of the Labour Party, and a relatively unknown but long-serving backbencher by the name of Jeremy Corbyn.

Harman had been an MP for more than thirty years at the time she spoke in 2015. Not for the first time, she defended the right to political dissent without interference from spycops and demanded to see her full file.

Harriet Harman:

‘I’d like to ask the Minister – it’s more important than just feeding in our views to an inquiry, the question is what he decides – and I would like him to assure me that he, the government, will let me see a full copy of my file.

In the 70s and the 1980s when I was at Brent Law Centre and then at Liberty, I was campaigning for the rights of women, for the rights of workers, and the right to demonstrate. None of that was against the law. None of that was undermining our democracy. On the contrary, it was actually essential for our democracy.

The security services do an important job, and the government of course should support them, but if they overstep the mark the government must hold them to account. So can I repeat a request I made to the previous government that was turned down and make it again to this government in the light of these new revelations.

Will he give me an assurance that this government will release to me a full copy of my file?’

Harriet Harman is still an MP. She voted for several of the amendments to the CHIS Bill but, after they failed, she abstained on the final vote.

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is the other spied-on Labour MP who is still in the Commons. He defied the leadership to vote against the CHIS Bill last night.

Back in 2015, Corbyn’s outrage at the injustice was palpable as he spoke to the House.

Jeremy Corbyn:

‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m pleased that this story has finally come out and as members of parliament we’re in a position to raise questions with the Home Office and demand the truth come out. Unfortunately many, many others unknown to us who were under surveillance do not have that opportunity.

The question is one of accountability of the Metropolitan Police. Who authorised this tapping? Who knew about it? Did the Home Secretary or successive Home Secretaries know about it? If they did, why didn’t they accept the Wilson Doctrine in respect of MPs? Why did they allow this covert operation to go on within the Metropolitan Police?

And I’m very surprised that, in his answer a few moments ago, he said the files might be released to us but they may have to be redacted for security reasons. If I’m under surveillance, or the late Bernie Grant or any of my friends are under surveillance, and whatever meetings we were at they were presumably there, whatever phone calls we made they were presumably recording, I think we have a right to know about that.

We represent constituents. We’re in a position of trust with our constituents. That trust is betrayed by this invasion of our privacy by the Metropolitan Police and I ask the Minister again can we each of us have a full unredacted version of everything that was written about us, every piece of surveillance that was undertaken of us, our families and our friends?’

Still No Answers, What Next?

All their requests to see their files were, like everyone else’s, ignored by the police. Five years later and those MPs, like the rest of us, are still waiting for answers.

The public inquiry into undercover political policing finally starts on 2 November, seven years after it was promised by the Home Secretary. It has granted anonymity to most spycops officers, so even if it does reveal some truth, there is little chance of proper accountability.

A major part of the Inquiry’s remit is to make recommendations for the future. But if the CHIS Bill becomes law, it turns the Inquiry into an academic historic exercise, with the spycops of the future able to commit the most heinous abuses with impunity.

Without warning, a new law is being rushed through parliament to allow police and other state agencies to self-authorise their agents to commit literally any crime. It would also prohibit civil claims by their victims.

The Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill would enshrine in law not only the right for spycops to commit the abuses that have caused so much public outrage, but much more besides.

Crimes would be permissable if they protect whatever is meant by ‘the economic wellbeing’ of the country. Authorisations would be given without limit or judicial oversight. The powers would extend well beyond the police and security services to include the likes of the Food Standards Agency, Competition & Markets Authority, and the Gambling Commission.

The pace of this law is breathtaking. It was published on 24th September, it had its second reading in the Commons on 5th October and will probably be in the House of Lords before the end of the month.

At the second reading, Labour and the SNP abstained, though about 20 Labour MPs rebelled to oppose it.

The third reading will be on Thursday 15th October, with amendments that would establish some safeguards to prohibit:

• Some serious serious crimes such as murder, torture and rape;
• Trade union infiltration and blacklisting;
• Agents having sexual relationships whilst in their undercover persona

Labour leader Keir Starmer is reported to be planning to instruct Labour MPs to abstain on the third reading, even if the changes being put forward by the opposition are not adopted.

What You Can Do

Before the third reading on Thursday, please email your MP and ask them to support the amendments and oppose the Bill.

Unite the Union has made an online tool that makes it quick and easy to send the email.

Joint Statement

The general secretaries of 14 trade unions, 20 Labour MPs and a number of campaigning organisations including the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, have signed a joint statement:

We the undersigned have grave concerns about the measures set out in the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill as introduced to the Commons at second reading (5 October 2020).

As many will be aware from the circumstances leading up to the setting up of the Mitting (formerly Pitchford) Inquiry into undercover policing, there has been a documented history of state surveillance of lawful trade union activity and justice campaigns in recent years, including apparent links with the criminal blacklisting of trade union members. We are also alarmed by the conduct of undercover police in pursuing surveillance of legitimate civil society organisations including anti-racist organisations, family justice campaigns and environmental groups.

Whilst the government has assured us that the bill will not apply retrospectively, we remain concerned that passing legislation with undue haste and insufficient scrutiny in Committee – pre-empting the findings of the Mitting Inquiry – risks compromising and undermining legal proceedings through which victims of previous criminal conduct by CHIS operatives are seeking justice.

Aside from the timing of the new licensing of criminal conduct by CHIS operatives, our specific concerns about the bill as it stands include:

• The vague definition of “economic wellbeing” being susceptible to interpretations which would implicate aspects of legitimate trade union activity;
• The failure to expressly rule out the authorisation of murder, torture or sexual violence by a CHIS;
• The lack of any provision to compensate innocent victims of criminal conduct undertaken by a CHIS;
• The unnecessarily broad range of agencies able to authorise unlawful conduct;
• The reliance on the Human Rights Act as limiting the scope of what might be legally authorised, despite the government’s own previous reliance on a legal defence that the State cannot be held responsible under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights for actions undertaken by individual agents, and;
• The lack of prior judicial authorisation or even concurrent judicial oversight.

In light of these concerns, we would ask the government to withdraw the bill to allow for due consideration of the evidence and findings of the Mitting Review, or at the very least to make substantial amendments to the Bill to meet the concerns outlined above.

If sufficient amendments to ensure proper safeguarding in the legislation are not secured, the bill will remain unfit for purpose and cannot be allowed to proceed.

We urge all those who share our concerns to use the tool at this link to email their MP today, to ask them to support the amendments submitted by the Labour frontbench, and to oppose the bill at third reading if the amendments are unsuccessful and the government refuses to withdraw the bill.

Signatories:

Len McCluskey, general secretary, Unite the Union

Matt Wrack, general secretary, Fire Brigades Union (FBU)

Sarah Woolley, general Secretary, Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU)

Dave Ward, general secretary, Communication Workers Union (CWU)

Manuel Cortes, general secretary, Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA)

Mick Whelan, general secretary, Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF)

Mick Cash, general secretary, Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT)

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary, National Education Union (NEU)

Jo Grady, general secretary, University and College Union (UCU)

Mark Serwotka, general secretary, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS)

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary, National Union of Journalists (NUJ)

Steve Gillan, general secretary, Prison Officers Association (POA)

Ian Lawrence, general secretary, NAPO

Bob Monks, general secretary, United Road Transport Union

Reprieve

Police Spies Out Of Lives

Momentum

Open Labour

Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance

Pat Finucane Centre

Privacy International

Committee for Administration of Justice (CAJ)

Rights and Security International

Undercover Research Group

Netpol

Blacklist Support Group

Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign

Justice 4 Grenfell

Public Interest Law Centre

Big Brother Watch

Jeremy Corbyn MP

John McDonnell MP

Diane Abbott MP

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP

Ian Lavery MP

Jon Trickett MP

Richard Burgon MP

Kate Osborne MP

Ian Byrne MP

Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP

Claudia Webbe MP

Clive Lewis MP

Bethan Winter MP

Rebecca Long-Bailey MP

Mick Whitley MP

Ian Mearns MP

Grahame Morris MP

Apsana Begum MP

Paula Barker MP

Zarah Sultana MP

Michelle Gildernew MP

Órfhlaith Begley MP

Francie Molloy MP

Mickey Brady MP

Paul Maskey MP

Chris Hazzard MP

John Finucane MP

Baroness Shami Chakrabarti

Baroness Christine Blower

Baroness Pauline Bryan

Lord John Hendy QC

Suresh Grover, co-director, The Monitoring Group

Dorothea Jones, co-director, The Monitoring Group

Terry Renshaw

Kate Flannery

Chris Peace

Laura Pidcock

Kate Wilson outside the Royal Courts of Justice

Kate Wilson has received startling admissions from the Metropolitan Police Service and the National Police Chiefs Council – at a hearing before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal at the Royal Courts of Justice being held this week.

These far-reaching admissions highlight the inadequacy of even the current legislation to provide protection to members of the public from dangerous abuses by agents and informers who are the Covert Human Intelligence Sources referred to in the current parliamentary CHIS Bill. This bill is shockingly set to significantly reduce existing levels of protection.

The police have admitted that they breached Kate’s Article 8 ECHR rights – to a private and family life – after conceding that her surveillance by at least six undercover officers over a sustained period, was neither proportionate nor justified. Previously they had only admitted that Article 8 was breached by the undercover officer Mark Kennedy when he deceived her into a long-term intimate and sexual relationship. Now they admit the intrusion was even greater.

Yet the police continue to claim that authorisations for surveillance of Kate and the environmental and social justice movements she was active in were lawful and legitimate; arguments particularly relevant right now with the worryingly hasty passage of the CHIS (Criminal Conduct) Bill through parliament. Kate fiercely contests this claim, and will ask that the court now examine the evidence and circumstances of the human rights breaches, as well as the lawfulness of the operations as a whole.

Kate says

“These admissions have wide reaching significance for the public at large. Over 30 women now know that they were deceived into intimate, sexual relationships with undercover officers. Many more people were subjected to similar infiltration by undercover officers. What happened to me was by no means unique, and hundreds of people will have had their rights violated in this way. These admissions mean it is simply not sustainable to say these operations were legitimate, proportionate, or lawful”

Of course, if the CHIS bill passes, new cases like Kate’s may no longer be able to be heard as the UK government are resistant to setting legal limits on any conduct that undercover operatives may consider to be justified. Other governments, such as Canada and the USA have written into security law that offences such as murder, torture, and sexual violence are not acceptable conduct for any reason.

Kate’s case should broadcast loudly to the public, and our legislators, that setting no limits on intrusions into the lives of citizens by security services and other undercover agents is profoundly dangerous for democracy.

Kate has fought this case for nine years. She has faced repeated attempts to shut down and delay her case, and fears this may be the start of another attempt to close the case down and avoid further scrutiny. The delays so far have been so severe that funding for legal counsel is exhausted and Kate is now a litigant in person – a huge undertaking against the vast resources of the police.

Many aspects of Kate’s case still need answers, such as whether her relationship with Kennedy was conducted with the knowledge and agreement of senior police officers, whether she suffered discrimination at the hands of the police because she was a woman, and whether Mark Kennedy and these other officers interfered with her right to freedom of expression, and freedom of association because of her political beliefs.

Originally published by Police Spies Out of Lives

For background on Kate Wilson’s human rights case against the police, see our post from her hearing in February 2020.