Finally it's Official!

The blacklisting buck stops at the top

The Mitting Inquiry's own lawyers show how the most senior civil servants in the land and government ministers including prime ministers knew about the spycops' activities including spying on trade unionists. And they agreed that their intelligence could be shared specifically with the Economic League and an anti-communist trade union outfit trading as IRIS Ltd.

On Monday 27 January 2023 the inquiry's legal team published their opening statement for the next  part of the Mitting, "spycops" inquiry, which looks into government and civil service policy and oversight of convert intelligence gathering. As well as publishing their statement and analysis of the oversight, they have released the evidence to support their shocking conclusions.

The damning evidence comes in a 1972 minute of the fitrst meeting  of the"Official Group supporting the Ministerial Committee on Subversion", chaired by Sir Patrick Dean, former ambassador to the UN and USA, which was considering possible counter subversive projects that two industrialists had proposed to prime minister Ted Heath. Donald Maitland, the Downing Street Press Secretary had brought the proposals to the group. There is no detail of the the projects in minutes, but but the groups response been:

:…..the suggestion that, after considering precisely which elements of industry they wished to exert influence, they should seek the help of the Economic League or Industrial Research and Information Service Limited (IRIS)”

Four days later Maitland was at a subgroup on Industry  meeting of  in which he is minuted as Raising the issue of "advance information for Industry":

"Mr MAITLAND said that he had been asked by the Dunlop Group (among others) whether there was a way in which a firm could be warned when it was in danger of employing an individual who was known to have been a subversive influence in some other part of industry; he had advised  Dunlops to seek help from non-official organisations such as the Economic League"

There are three minuted notes that report on the discussion of this issue. The first note is that "it is a cardinal principle" that MI5 that "official information" cannot be made available "merely to protect private industrial interest". 

Unfortunately here is a danger that the inquiry's egal team think this, what they call,  "qualification" is being applied in some way to special branch leaks to the Economic League, or IRIS. It is not, but if it was  then the use of the word "merely" subverts  that interpretation not only for the police, but also for MI5 itself. 

It is clearly a distinction being made between commercial industrial espionage, and leaks for counter-subversive purposes, being recorded in a guarded way in minutes which at some point in the future will be a matter of public record. The second point is that "it is similarly impossible to countenance unofficial access to criminal records", This is no longer a sensitivity and official access for all employers to criminal records is granted by primary legislation.

The third point is makes it clear how "leakage" to the League and IRIS was a cornerstone of the governments'  counter subversive tsactics, it is (in full):

"Where there is evidence that a subversive employee was likely to change the scene of his operations, it was possible  to ensure that this was given enough unofficial publicity tp serve as an adequate warning to firms that might be at risk"

Apart from this possible misunderstanding of the minutes the inquiry's legal team are unequivocal about the evidence they have received:

"The evidential picture is therefore that SDS officers reported the political activities of members and supporters of extreme leftwing organisations. These details were filed on Special Branch records. It cannot be ruled out that such intelligence was later leaked, contrary to formal procedure, to organisations which would have used them to inform industry of potential troublemakers. The operations of such organisations, but not the leaking of information to them by police officers, are expressly condoned and encouraged in Cabinet Office records."

On this last crucial point, it seems that the legal team are giving the spycops and their bosses in the Met an easier ride than the politicians and bureaucrats. They point as evidence, to a "A note on counter surveillance"   written by Norman Reddaway Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and founder of IRD  for Sir Burke Trend the cabinet Secretary. It was sent on 27 May, 1971 when the formation of what was to become the Dean Committee was being considered:

“[The proposed Coordinating Group] would analyse the problem as a whole and study the range of possible counter-subversion measures, including the dissemination and leakage of information at present practised. It might of course decide that in many situations an increase in the dissemination of information was all that was required.”

The last sentence illustrates how central the non-official organisations like the league and IRIS were to their strategic thinking. 

Though their aims were similar, and both played a key role in the state's think counter-subversion tactics. IRIS was a different beast to the Economic League. It was anti-communist creation of trades-unionists and Labour party members. The earliest references in the press suggest it was formed in the early 1950's,nand generally it wore it was open about its anti-communism, and in May 1958 the Guardian reported that it had agreed damages with a man whom that had wrongly called a communist. 

However an expose in "The People" in 1960 suggested it was not that open. 

Bill Sirs of the steel union,was a director as was Ken Cure of the AEU and Sir Jack Sprat , former NUM official and leader of Wakefield Council. Later on, the AEU's Sir John Boyd joined the board. Its trustees included Lord Robens, former chair of the NCB and Lord McAlpine a stalwart of the Economic League and founder of The Consulting Association..

Following the release of cabinet papers from the early 1960s in 1995 journalist Seamus Milne revealed in the Guardian that in the Harold Macmillian had  secured IRIS Ltd a grant from the secret vote which funds MI5 and MI6.

The governments of the early seventies had created a massive bureaucratic civil service-led machine dedicate to counter subversion and the Dean Committee was just one of them:

• ·      Committee of Ministers

Chaired by the then Prime Minister and including the Home Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, Secretary of State for Defence, the Lord President of the Council and the Secretary of State for Employment.

• ·    The Dean Committee
• ·    The Heron Sub-Group on Industry
• ·    Official Committee on Subversion (Home)

 Chaired by cabinet secretary Bert Trend

• ·    Information Research Department’s Engli
•      The Interdepartmental Group to Study Subversion in Public Life

Chaired by Sir James Waddell

• ·    Joint Intelligence Committee
• ·    Working Group on Countermeasures

The wasn't just a massiveTory machine though. The  Metropolitan Police Special Branch's Special Demonstration Squad of spycops, was set up in 1968 under a Labour Government headed up by Harold Wilson, in which, in 1967, James Callaghan was the Home Secretary. At the time of Callaghan's  appointment and in the three years previously under his predecessor Roy Jenkins the Subversion at Home Committee had been called the Official Committee on Communism (Home). Callaghan changed the name and remit.

In June 1970 Ted Heath became prime minister for the first time and appointed Reginald Maudling to the post, but he had to resign two years later because of his involvement in the Poulson Scandal. He was replaced by Robert Carr who also served for two years until Wilson returned as Prime minister in 1974, and  Roy Jenkins returned to the Home Office.  Jenkins and Wilson  closed down Subversion in Public Life group chaired by Sir James Waddell who agreed the funding of the SDS. When Wilson resigned and was replaced by Callaghan as leader in 1976. Callaghan appointed Leeds MP Merlyn Rees as Home Secretary, and revived the Subversion in Public Life.

We all know what happened next…..

Mike Hughes

4 Feb 2023

Read the 70 page opening statement in full, and find references to the newly published evidence at:

cti-opening-statement-t1-m2b-m2c