The revelation by former Met officer turned whistleblower
Peter Francis that he was ordered to find dirt on the Stephen Lawrence family
in the wake of their son’s murder is shocking in itself. But it’s only the tip
of the iceberg when it comes to the state within the state.
Behind the Special Branch which ran the Special
Demonstration Squad (SDS) of which Francis was a member, is the internal spy
agency MI5 and its operatives who remain in the shadows. And there are
undoubtedly other secret units we know nothing about whose job is to “defend
the realm” – the ruling classes and their state institutions.
Politicians and senior policemen will disavow their more
unsavoury activities, claiming they knew nothing about them, just as former Met
commissioner Paul Condon did over the Francis allegations. The SDS made the Lawrence family a target
when the regular police themselves were indifferent to catching his killers.
Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw protesteth too much
about this particular incident. His regime oversaw secret “extraordinary
rendition” – aka kidnapping – flights by way of UK
airports, torture authorised by the external spy agency MI6, and a whole series
of fabrications that suggested Iraq
had weapons of mass destruction.
Francis revealed on Channel 4 Dispatches
that he asked to find anything that could smear the Lawrence family to would weaken support for
the family in the wider community. Ostensibly, the police wanted to prevent
“public disorder” in the wake of the 1993 killing. In practice, as the Macpherson
inquiry reported in 1999, the Met was institutionally racist and botched
its investigation from the start. The SDS’s infamous smear attempt was kept
away from the inquiry.
Police/MI5 infiltration is as old as the state itself.
Before the SDS was created, Special Branch ran agents inside left-wing parties,
trade unions, civil liberties groups and other campaigns like CND. Not only did
they report their intelligence, they also acted as agents provocateurs.
This can involve suggesting actions that could be illegal,
setting people against each other to encourage political division, subverting
an organisation’s finances and much more. As recently as 2011, the trial of
eco-activists who allegedly tried to break into Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station was abandoned when the role of secret policeman Mark Kennedy
in the plans became known.
A number of women are taking action against the police for
psychological damage caused by other members of the SDS who befriended them and
had sexual relations. In one notorious case, an officer called Bob Lambert had
a child with an activist before disappearing back to Special Branch. Another
woman told Channel 4 she had been “raped by the state”.
In 2008, the work of the SDS was taken over by the National
Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) which is part of the Special Operations
directorate of the Metropolitan Police.
Meanwhile, joke of jokes, the police are investigating the
activities of their own undercover agents! The chances of this establishing the
truth are less than zero. Nor would a public inquiry demanded by Francis – who
himself was psychologically wrecked by his experience – get closer to the
truth.
The fact is that the state will do whatever it takes to – as
Channel 4 was told – to “prevent change from happening in the world”. That’s
the priority. Anyone who thinks the police and other institutions are there to
serve the public should put the idea out of their minds.
With the authority and legitimacy of the state increasingly
questioned by people all round the world, the lurch towards total surveillance
is gathering momentum. In Britain ,
the government spy station GCHQ in Cheltenham is teamed up with the National
Security Agency in the US
to track and monitor internet traffic on a global basis.
Ultimately, it won’t do them any good. We, the people, have
had enough. Whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Peter Francis are coming out
of the state’s woodwork. The edifice is rotten and every day more and more
people realise that. So whoever’s reading this on behalf of the state, the game
is up. You'd be better off becoming a whilstleblower!
Paul Feldman
Communications editor
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