The spycops public inquiry has this week reached Tranch Two Part Two.
There is now a lot of evidence emerging about just what damage they inflicted upon many individuals.
They were also responsible for many miscarriages of justice, and adversely effected our political campaigning.
Here is an example of just what Bob Lambert who I knew as Bob Robinson got up to
I will be giving evidence about him in early November..
Despite Lockdown and the continuing difficulties which we are all experiencing, it has been possible for me to continue working upon various projects. This is a brief summary of some of the them.
Anti Nukiller Power
I recently put together the latest issue of Countering Capenhurst.
This contains a lot of information about DRS [ Direct Rail Services ] which transports Highly Radioactive uses fuel rods and other nukiller waste.
What I now have is enough material and written pieces to produce a pamphlet on the issue, but it is never wise to edit ones own articles .
Thus I am looking for someone to work on it with me.
5 Cale Road
The 5 Caledonian Road Project website has just been launched.
The subtitle of being 60 years of books and activism.
This is a project which I was interviewed for. You can hear a little of this interview under Small Scale Demonstrations on the website.
The ongoing Spycops Public Inquiry
Aspects of being a CP [Core Participant] in the Undercover Policing [Spycops ] Public Inquiry are still taking up a lot of my time.
Of particular interest to me is a 1980 Special Branch report describing the development of the anti-nuclear movement in the UK
Sorting out my various collections
One of the side effects of such a long lockdown has been that I’ve had the chance to go through and properly sort out my various collections.
I’ve done the same with my various documents which are now ready to be put to an archive.
I would never of been able to do this if there were a lot of meetings and events to attend.
Soon
Soon it will be possible to start organising some more proactive campaigning.
That is something which I am looking forward to doing.
There are times when it is possible to engage upon active campaigning, and times when one needs to engage in more reflected activism.
These last few weeks have been very much this way as Part Two of Tranche one of the Undercover Policing Inquiry is taking place.
This public inquiry in to the activities of various spycops has so far cost something in the region of £40,000,000.
Yet I, like many of the victims of the SDS [ Special Demonstration Squad ], are still waiting to find out exactly how we we spied upon.
Part Three of Tranche One of the inquiry will now take place next year instead of this autumn, while Tranche Two will not start until 2023.
There are still many questions which need to be addressed about just how I and many others we spied upon.
It is taking to lot of effort to get any answers to these questions.
You might well ask why this was done.
It was done because we were campaigning to create a better world.
Box 500
The SDS was a unit of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.
The spying reports produced by the SDS were rubber stamped Box 500, which was code for them being passed on to MI5.
It is now clear that many of the reports were seen by senior government ministers, or used in the summary intelligence they received.
As the inquiry proceeds we will no doubt learn more about what happened to those of us who are spycop victims, but we still need to know who all the spycops were.
Aspects of Information work and Usage
So here I am
– Retired but still practising Library and Information work.
– Information Provider.
– Information worker..
– With aspects of my life to be found online
&
– An archive in Amsterdam
It’s a good combination to have.
Yet some of the same kind of activity has been done about me by the state.
Spycop[s]
The Infamous Special Demonstration Squad [ SDS ] was established during 1968.
It was established to infiltrate politically active groups and report their activities to the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, but it has now emerged that the information which these spycops gathered was being passed on to MI5.
I and many of the political campaigning groups I was involved in were the subject of SDS reports.
Greenpeace [ London ] which I have been involved with for many years was infiltrated by at least Three Spycops.
Trying to find out
So here I am
– Trying to find out just how extensive the state spycops built files on me
&
– A Core Participant in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Not that the inquiry is opening up that many of the files about myself, my friends, and the various campaigns which I was involved in.
What is known ?
So just what has the inquiry revealed about me which I didn’t know already ?
That I and my mates were spied upon?
I knew that already.
The true and cover names of the various spycops ?
Most of the ones we do know about are in the public domain, including the notorious Bob Lambert who went by the cover name of Bob Robinson while he was spying on me.
Open the files
The inquiry is slowly releasing some information about just who was spied upon to some core participants, but it is far from complete.
While we are still demanding a full list of all the spycop cover names, and those campaigning groups they spied upon.
In the meanwhile: –
The documents I have received do include my individual Special branch file number, but not what is included in it.
500
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of what the inquiry has revealed, is that the SDS reports were passed on to MI5.
These files are rubber stamped with the number 500.
I am thinking to get a badge made with a drawing of a rubber stamp with the number 500 on it.
Aspects Of Spycop Activities.
Being spied upon by the state is something which all radical activists have known about for years.
The growing evidence about SDS spycops infiltrating, followed by manipulating the work of many campaigning groups and political organisations is truly shocking.
As is the way that many of them engaged in manipulative sexual activities with unsuspecting individuals while undercover.
That is something which is refereed to as rape by the state.
Coming to light.
Last Monday the Spycops public inquiry starred the first of its evidential hearing.
Rather than me repeat and comment upon what has been said during these hearing, I would recommend you all to read about them upon the COPS [Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance] website.
Think that your not living in a free country ?
All I can say is that those who live within the EU are so lucky to be away from the dysfunctional totalitarian nightmare which is now the norm within Brexitland.
Brexit is making for a social, economic, and ecological disaster.
It is also starting to impact upon our civil liberties.
Spycops and History
Meanwhile the spycops public inquiry is still refusing to open up all the files that they have received from the SDS.
It means that those of us who are the victims of spycop activities are still not able to find out just what happened to us.
That’s what they did to me, my mates, friends, comrades, other CPs [Core Participants] in the inquiry, all those who have been refused CP status, and the many thousands of other individuals they spied upon or kept files on.
Those are political policing files which go back to 1968.
While such files as have been released to us have been heavily redacted.
Some 30 years ago there was a banner taken upon one of the many peace marches which have been held over the years. It read ‘Historians for the right to future work’.
That’s something which might also be said about the need to see all the SDS Spycop files.
So open up the files !
Meantime
In the meantime I have just signed this public statement.
Right Now
What applies to politics applies to life too.
That is, to take the Overview, but keep an eye on the details.
With so many of the campaigns I’m involved with that’s very much the case.
Yet there is also something else which goes with that.
The need for to have a very wide ranging general knowledge in order to deal with any subject one might be asked about.
This is very much the case with all of the anti Nukiller and spycops campaigning I’m doing right now. That’s the work which I’m having to very much focus upon right now.
Which brings on to just why we all want answers from the Undercover Policing [ Spycops ] Public Inquiry.
Bob Lambert
One of the most shocking aspects of the whole spycops issue which deserves a lot more attention, is how they manipulated the campaigning work of the various groups they infiltrated.
That’s exactly what spycop Bob Lambert did with Greenpeace [ London ].
He moved the emphasis of the group away from focusing upon anti militarist and anti Nukiller campaigning, to that of mainly working upon animal rights activists, and thus the whole Mucklibel set of trials.
The most important questions being how much was that a spycop policing policy, and how much damage has it done to our other ongoing campaigning ?
Anti Nukiller Protests During the 1970s
This is not a definitive history of the Greenpeace [ London ] group, but just small part of it.
French Nukiller Bomb Protests
During 1973 Greenpeace [ London ] organised the London to Paris march against the French nukiller bomb tests at Mururoa in the Pacific.
The march was attacked by the French CRS [ riot police ] at the boarder between Belgium and France.
Though some people did manage to cross over the boarder at other points, and took part in the Paris Protest which followed this event.
During both 1973 & 1974 the group organised many protests outside the French Embassy, and a number of die-ins too.
The group organised a number of protest marches about the French Nukiller Bomb tests during 1973 and 1974.
I spent a lot of my time upon these various protests, leafleting sessions, and organising the Greenpeace [London ] protest marches which took place during 1974.
On August the 4th 1974 the group organised a march from Hyde Park Corner to Trafalgar Square where a rally was held. It was the one and only time I ever spoke in the square.
Starting to campaign upon nukiller power
During 1974 and 1975 the group started looking at the issue of Nukiller power. which took a while to do so, as at that stage there were very few books or articles upon the dangers they pose.
It was because of the follow up work upon the import of uranium [Yellowcake] to be processed Capenhurst and Springfields that the group become of interest to the SDS spycops.
Now follow this on by looking at the spycop public inquiry.
There is something I’ve observed many a time, and which I engage upon once in a while.
The old comrades getting together, and talking about our previous campaigns:
– What went wrong with them
– What went right with them
– Who was involved in them
and
– All the funny things which happened while they were going on.
These discussions can be very enjoyable to participant in, but only once in a while.
There are just too many new projects / new campaigns which I want to spend my life engaged upon.
& yet
& yet
An exercise in secrecy.
As many of you will know I am a Core Participant [ CP ] in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. At the end of January the following piece about the Undercover Policing Inquiry was published on the Campaign Against Police Surveillance website.
UCPI FAQ: The Spycops Public Inquiry
What really gets me is that so much information is being withheld on what the spycops did to me and many other activists.
The inquiry is withholding as much information about the various spycops as it can get away with.
At the same time the inquiry has put a legal restriction order on revealing both the cover and real names of most of these spycops.
Then eventually when we will get our individual SDS files, a very high percentage of what is in them will be redacted.
Many more years.
A lot of my old friends & comrades are now dead.
Thus it is going to be very difficult to know the extent they were spied upon.
Then there are all those individuals who I worked with in various groups or organisations over the years, and which I’ve now lost contact with.
That’s something which happens to us all.
While I am still in regular contact with others who live a long way from me,
but am unable to see on a regular basis.
Shock.
Discovering about the activities of the SDS goes way beyond shocking.
This is no surprise when you consider the feelings of surprise, anger, betrayal, and emotional distress which comes with the discovery of becoming a spycop victim.
Thus in many ways the whole process leaves me feeling very isolated,
and with little energy spare for more high stress activities.
Come the year 2026
I’ll be around 76 by the time the inquiry report is published.
Is it any wonder the whole thing leaves me with a great feeling of sadness?
Though I also feel it to be a process of mourning without mourning.
Other Complications.
There is another aspect to this which also complicates this for me.
Working to stop the nukiller power issue does take a lot of my time,
and involves a lot of effort.
If I were to disengage from this work for a while it might give me a rest,
but with so few activists, and so much which needs to be done, this is not the time to ease off for a while.
Thus I am going to keep working on this issue.
What ever else, most of the inquiry hearings dealing with the aspects of the time frame which concerns me the most will be completed by some time next year,
and I should of received the redacted SDS files about my activities.
Until that is over I’m going to be very over-stretched indeed.
Living in the past.
I knew Bob Robinson as a supposed friend and comrade in the mid 1980s.
This summer it will be nine years since I learnt he was a spycop with the real name of Dr Robert Lambert.
That is why I am a CP in the spycops public inquiry.
I Don’t want to spend my twilight years trying to discover just what political and emotional damage Bob and the rest of the SDS did while undercover.
& Yet
& Yet
It is important to know just what the various spycops got up to. Not knowing is emotionally distressing to everyone who is a spycop victim.
For me it is very important to state all of the above, and keep working away on these various issues.
& Yet
& Yet
It does come with a high emotional cost.
What might happen if —
– Boris, the unelected british prime monster, was to ask for an extension to Article 50, but it will only be agreed to by our fellow Europeans on the condition that there is another referendum ?
– The Brexit disaster happens, and there is a highly popular demand for the uk to reapply to become a part of the EU once more ?
– It is discovered that the police view the rabid right wing to be so dangerous, that they have embedded spycops in the Tory, UKIP, and Brexit political parties ?
Now – Think on — — — —