I continue to be  concerned about the lack of historical context for the the Undercover Policing Inquiry

 

The last two weeks of  the UCPO have seen the UCPI make a significant changes direction largely as a result of John Dines, Bob Lambert, and Andy Coles becoming  UCOs in the SDS in the early 1980s. Lambert and Coles will be interrogated and give evidence in person in the inquiry  before Christmas, But they have already provided enough in their witness statements, and acknowledged enough about what they did, to enable most reasonable followers of the, inquiry and the I suspect the inquiry team itself, to conclude that they  represent the most aggressively duplicitous and abusive of the Metropolitan Police’s undercover officers.

Those traits are responsible for the first and most disastrous change in the UCPI direction. Their lies about their victims have forced many of the non -state, non-police,  core participants to seek the same sort of anonymity all already and damagingly granted to the state witnesses.

While no one would be willing indulge in any prurient interest in the intimate details of the officers’ abuse, the impact has been to ensure that the UCPI is no longer a public inquiry, Thousands of responsible citizens whose human rights were abused and who ended up with MI5 and Special Branch records, and  whom the Inquiry has excluded from participation, are now even further away from find out the truth about Scotland Yard and MI5’s unconstitutional intrusions.

The only thing we can do about that is point out the injustice and hopelessly that the Home Secretary  intervenes.  However, those of  us following  the secret inquiry as best we can, as  both core and ignored participants, can do something to address the other consequences of the SDS  change in direction in the 1980s and its impact on the Inquiry forty years later. That is, we can provide an accurate and alternative interpretation of the evidence which is in the public domain.

Since the inquiry started meeting in camera two weeks ago, evidence has been dominated by detailed investigation of animal rights activism and in particular actions undertaken in the name of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). There is no doubt in my mind  that in the 1980s animal rights and environmental campaigns  acquired more significance amongst those with radical political views and radicalised many young people who were alienated by the social conservatism of both democratic and Marxist socialists.

As it turns out it was also the start of  long-term change in the focus and priorities of those committed to securing social justice and greater self-determination. But in the 1980s they were a fringe or low priority interest and were viewed by many radical thinkers as a distraction.

I am pretty sure that I shared that general view then, although I knew and respected militant vegetarians, environmental activists and hunt sabs. I also wanted to test  this feeling in a slightly more objective way than interrogating my own opinionated memory. These days large language model artificial intelligence like Chat GPT  provides a useful objective tool for gauging consensus view. I therefore asked Chat:

What were the main left-wing campaigns in Britain between May 1979 and Christmas 1989?

The response seemed to confirm my view:

 

“Between May 1979 and Christmas 1989, left-wing campaigns in Britain were shaped by the political, economic, and social landscape of the Thatcher era. These campaigns sought to challenge the policies of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, which pursued neoliberal economic reforms, curtailed trade union power, and restructured the welfare state. Key left-wing campaigns during this period included:

1. Anti-Austerity and Economic Justice Campaigns

• Opposition to Thatcher’s Economic Policies:Left-wing groups protested against mass privatization of industries (e.g., British Gas, British Telecom, and British Steel) and cuts to public spending.
• Campaign Against Unemployment:Right to Work Campaign and the People's March for Jobs (1981)

2. Trade Union and Workers' Rights

• Miners' Strike (1984–1985)
• Wapping Dispute (1986–1987):
• Anti-Trade Union Legislation Campaigns

3. Anti-Nuclear Movement

• Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp

4. Anti-Racist Campaigns

• Opposition to Institutional Racism
• Anti-Nazi League (ANL)
• Rock Against Racism (RAR)

5. Women’s Liberation and Feminism

• Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (1981–2000)
• Equal Pay and Workplace Rights
• Reproductive Rights

6. LGBTQ+ Rights

• Campaign Against Section 28
• Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM)

7. Peace and Anti-War Movements

• Opposition to Falklands War (1982)
• Opposition to U.S. Foreign Policy

8. Anti-Poll Tax Campaign
9. Urban and Community Activism

• London Labour Left (Ken Livingstone)
• Anti-Gentrification and Housing Campaigns

10. International Solidarity

• Anti-Apartheid Movement
• Support for Irish Republicanism
• Solidarity with Central and Latin America

 

I was a little surprised to see the environment and animal rights not in the list at all and asked a supplementary question:

What about environmental campaigns and animal rights?

 

ChatGPT said:

During the Thatcher years (1979–1989), environmental and animal rights campaigns emerged as significant aspects of left-wing activism in Britain, reflecting growing public concern about ecological issues, climate change, and the welfare of animals. These campaigns were often grassroots-led and sometimes intersected with other left-wing causes. Here's an overview of the main campaigns:

Environmental Campaigns

1. Opposition to Nuclear Power
2. Anti-Roads Campaigns
3. Acid Rain and Air Pollution
4. Climate Change Awareness
5. Recycling and Waste Reduction
6. Save the Rainforests

 

Animal Rights Campaigns

1. Opposition to Animal Testing
2. Anti-Fur Campaigns
3. Hunting and Blood Sports
4. Factory Farming and Animal Welfare
5. Save the Whales
6. Circuses and Zoos

 

From the evidence already heard by the Inquiry, it is clear that London Greenpeace (not to be confused with Greenpeace International) was a libertarian socialist platform or movement, embracing the full range of radical ideas and actions in the post-punk political environment.

The organised political environment in the 1980s left the  Labour Party under Kinnock with nothing to offer, the CPGB was on its last legs and most of the Marxist and Trotskyist  organisations remained narrowly focused  on class struggle and dismissed  anything else as a diversion from that fight.

London Greenpeace seems not to have been doctrinaire, or  disciplined and tightly led, like the Marxist organisations. It was relatively small and open, and that openness was no bad thing at all.  But it made it vulnerable  to infiltration by people with destructive and disruptive intentions. Bob Lambert  clearly realised its potential as an easy and welcoming  portal though which UCOs could enter into, and establish their activist credentials in, radical circles in London and elsewhere.

Lambert and Dines either ignored or changed the rules about engaging  in and encouraging and leading direct actions. They did this in ways that went beyond the conventional notion of agent provocateurs. The inquiry  has already heard enough to conclude that Lambert and Dines played a central had role in pushing Animal Rights in general; up the agenda in LG and advocating for the pacifist terrorist tactics of the ALF to the extent that Lambert became the organiser of  an ALF cell.  In the intelligence reports that Lambert submitted to superior officers he was careful to finger others in the cell being responsible for his actions and achievements.

ALF tactics were at odds with many of the pacifist and collectivist values that held sway in LG, but not their commitment to direct action and calling out and confronting those responsible for injustices. Hunt-sabbing, raiding vivisection laboratories and liberating animals, and the internationally important anti-McDonalds campaign were much  more their preferred way forward. These were publicly visible group actions and would have been  less vulnerable  to the bad actors and agent provocateurs in the MPS.

 

ALF objectives also had precious little to do with public order or subversion, and by moving the focus of the SDS into this area the MPS  were in effect themselves subverting the original purpose and mission of the SDS.  And that is a mission already deemed inappropriate and ineffective by the UCPI.

 

Context is almost everything when considering issues of proportionality and reasonableness  and in considering the common law and constitutional issues at stake when inquiring into inappropriate policing. The lack of evidence and discussion about what I have here called the "political environment" during Phase 1 and Phase 2 is a matter of concern. This is mainly because  most of the inquiry team, with the exception of chair but including the chief Counsel , have no adult personal experience or memories of the 1970s and 1980s.

 

The poet William Wordsworth visited France in 1791 and 1792 and later recalled his reaction to the revolution in his long autobiographical poem, The Prelude:

"Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!"

I feel not unlike  that about the eighties. Wordsworth went on to distance himself from his youthful radicalism. But looking back on the list of campaigns produced by Chat, even though it included some very tough times and heroic failures, I feel convinced that that I was then  - like London Greenpeace - always on the right side.

 

It would not always be so for me though.  In 1991 after  a decade of  high-minded oppositional politics under Thatcherism I finally decided to compromise and joined the Labour Party. I actively campaigned in the unsuccessful 1992 election and then in the  successful 1997 landslide. I now feel nothing but a sense shame to have been involved in that betrayal …