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BS: no reason for being spooked
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Subject: BS: no reason for being spooked From: The Sandman Date: 05 Aug 14 - 07:35 AM HE revelations about MI5 infiltration of the unions confirm that there are large parts of the state wholly removed from any hint of democratic control. According to the BBC series True Spies, secret service agents bugged, burgled and bribed their way into the heart of the unions during the 1970s and 1980s. Hurling aside all the rhetoric about privacy and the rule of law, these agents did what they pleased in order to destabilise workers' organisations. The spies had friends at the top of the union movement. Joe Gormley, the leader of the miners' NUM union in the 1970s, and Ray Buckton, who led the Aslef rail union, passed information about their members to state agents. Gormley was a traditional Labour right winger. He had secret meetings with Tory prime minister Ted Heath during the miners' strikes of 1972 and 1974. So his links with the state are not surprising. But Buckton is at first sight more of a shock. He was seen as left wing and was at the centre of discussion among left wing union leaders about tactics during the miners' strike of 1984-5. He was also vilified by newspapers such as the Daily Mail for being a 'filthy red' who was holding the country to ransom. On one occasion the witch-hunting was so intense it led to death threats. Buckton was given armed Special Branch guards. At the time he said he was convinced that his death threats had been engineered to provide an excuse for round the clock surveillance. Perhaps it was to make it easier for him to pass on information! It seems likely that Gormley and Buckton were not alone. The ex Special Branch officers who have been boasting of their exploits to the BBC say that 23 senior trade unionists were 'talking' to them in the 1970s - not counting those working directly for MI5. Based on the agents' reports, workers were vetted by employers and then blacklisted. The lives of many thousands of workers, and those of their families, were wrecked as a result. The surveillance went beyond trade unionists. Tony Robinson, a member of Lancashire Special Branch between 1965 and 1981, told the BBC how he visited MI5's registry. There were 'thousands and thousands of files. There must have been upwards of, if not more than, a million.' According to former MI5 officer Cathy Massiter, 'Whenever a major dispute came up it would immediately become a major area for investigation.' MI5 compiled 40 volumes each on Hugh Scanlon and Jack Jones, leaders of the TGWU and the AUEW unions. They were viewed much as Bob Crow and Mark Serwotka are today. The security services went for CND and the Anti-Apartheid Movement. They also investigated the National Council of Civil Liberties and its leaders Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman. They are now, respectively, trade and industry secretary and solicitor general. However, for all MI5's nastiness, it would be wrong to overestimate its importance. It didn't stop CND and anti-apartheid being huge movements. It didn't stop the miners winning in 1972 or 1974. Indeed, despite having Joe Gormley as an informer, MI5 told the government in 1972 that there would definitely be no strike. Ray Buckton did play a disgusting role during the miners' strike. He pushed through a terrible pay settlement on the rail in January 1985. This helped the Tories isolate the miners. But it is very doubtful that Buckton sold out because he was a spy. Other union leaders also settled key claims while the miners were fighting. Nor did the secret service briefings always do a great deal for their masters. Labour minister Barbara Castle describes in her diaries, 'Another security service report on the Ford dispute. The more I read these reports, the less confidence I have in our intelligence. 'To begin with, the material is always mighty thin and most of it would be obvious anyway to an informed politician.' Castle once told me (and she wasn't being especially nice when she said it) that 'you could learn more from Socialist Worker than from the secret service'. The state has always sought to infiltrate the unions. From the earliest days there have been spies at work - and there undoubtedly still are some today in the unions and the anti-capitalist movement. True Spies exposed a little of what the state is really like - not neutral, wedded to the interests of the powerful and the rich, immune in critical areas to democracy. If this is what these people do in a strike, imagine what they would do if they faced a revolution. The state resorts to these measures because of a basic strength on our side. It's not spies who turn up in large numbers to support other workers on picket lines, but fellow trade unionists and socialists whose solidarity is the key to beating the bosses and their state. Article information Features Sat 2 Nov 2002, 00:00 GMT Issue No. 1824 Share this article Email this article Email Print this article Print Paper Highlights Tags Front cover for issue 2414 Click here to download this weeks paper in PDF format, plain text format, and browse previous issues. Subscribe to socialist worker Get In Touch Socialist Worker is your paper. If you're involved in activity, send us a report. 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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 05 Aug 14 - 08:34 AM Any chance of using the word "alleged"? After all, I have first hand knowledge of some of this and a hell of a lot of it is bollocks. Joe Gormley blew this old story out years ago. Claims of him being in London when The BBC were busy interviewing him over something else in Sheffield being the one that sticks in my memory. Union leaders are there to negotiate, not to have a no surrender attitude in line with trots. They work in the interest of their members. Very few SWP trots worked down the pit. I personally gave evidence that put a SWP thug in prison for three months in 1986 after the police found it was him who pushed a note through my door stating what time each day my wife took our baby to the nursery in 1984. This because whilst on strike, I carried on my day release college. SWP spearheaded a campaign against teenagers. Apprentices were locked out and not allowed to strike so when they were called back in, savage thugs called them scabs. The union, who happily took their subs, refused to fight the case of those too scared to go back and had their indenture removed. The contribution of SWP in the miners' strike was to turn decent people against ideology and once The NCB allowed men back, 90% of Yorkshire miners were back within a month. Two wrongs never made a right. Whatever the answers are to corruption in both government and trade unions, people in general are too educated and too sophisticated to fall for such crap as this. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 05 Aug 14 - 09:31 AM Scab |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 05 Aug 14 - 11:09 AM Solicitor |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST,# Date: 05 Aug 14 - 11:50 AM The Socialist Worker is a verifiably reliable source. They'll be first to tell you that. And often last. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST,achmelvich Date: 05 Aug 14 - 12:48 PM anything the government have told us since the early 1970s is at best a distortion of the truth and usually a lie. the swp - no matter what you may think of their policies - are a tiny organisation with no influence on anyone's lives beyond their own family members. if they did not exist the government would invent and finance them as a useful group which they can use to scare other socialists. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST, topsie Date: 05 Aug 14 - 12:52 PM I did wonder why there should be a sudden panic about an article produced in November 2002. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST,Guest Date: 05 Aug 14 - 01:06 PM What's the point in cut-and-pasting an article from twelve years ago? |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST Date: 05 Aug 14 - 01:12 PM Perhaps GSS is a slow reader |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 05 Aug 14 - 01:23 PM Old stuff of little interest now. I can't comment on a UK problem, but during the years following WW1, some people affiliated with unions in North America were anarchists and thugs. Investigations to identify and neutralize them continued through the years, and can be justified. It took many years for unions to become respectable in the eyes of non-union people, and some still are tarnished with accusations of Mafia connections. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 05 Aug 14 - 05:22 PM Anarchists? Unions? Someone seems to have comprehension problems. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST,# Date: 05 Aug 14 - 06:11 PM No comprehension problem to see that the Socialist Worker is less than a rag. As for comprehension problems, a true socialist would put the dozen guitars he doesn't need into the hands of people who do need. I like your politics in a general sense, but spare me the socialist stuff. Try enlightened capitalist. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: The Sandman Date: 05 Aug 14 - 08:01 PM you are misinformed, the information appeared under the 30 year rule, in 2003, in several national newspapers including the Guardian, If you do not want to believe this information, then please tell me why it was kept secret until 2003, and finally released 30 years when it had to be, Musket there is no alleged,THESE ARE THE CABINET PAPERS OF 1973, you have just shown yourself to be completely ignorant. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 06 Aug 14 - 01:11 AM "Enlightened capitalist"? Antonym? |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 06 Aug 14 - 02:38 AM Yes yes.. MI5 had and possibly have files on anyone and everyone. Harold Wilson was being watched by a paranoid MI5 whilst Prime Minister. No question of the facts, it's the conclusions that are wonky. Not to mention the ludicrous idea that SWP have anything to offer c21 society. Lots of people voted conservative in those days, don't forget. I have no idea why, you'd have to ask Richard Bridge for an insight into what makes a conservative call a striking miner a scab. zzzzzz |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: The Sandman Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:53 AM musket, stop muddying the waters, i have presented facts, these are details from cabinet papers, this information is generally tucked away, it is in my opinion the sort of information everyone should know, which is my reason for putting it up here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 06 Aug 14 - 08:57 AM I am not a conservative and you were not a striking miner, you were going about your normal tasks on day release to college, and you did your little bit to bring down the strike. Scab. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 06 Aug 14 - 12:48 PM I was on strike. I had the bailiffs in to prove it. I didn't get paid for two days a week at college either, although the NUM union rep at our pit contacted all apprentices and student apprentices to tell them that the NUM expected them to go to college. Looks like The NUM did their bit to bring down the strike then? Some of us could have said that the minute John Scott, Manton NUM delegate went to the delegates meeting in Sheffield and reported Manton as voting to strike, when in fact, we didn't. I was there and it was over two thirds against. That's why two blokes from our pit managed to get NUM funds sequestrated. Unions either work in the interest of the wishes of their members or they have no mandate. Bankers are supposed to work in the interest of their customers. Same thing, different coloured collar. You might have read about that when you picked up a copy of The Telegraph when you went to the local con club for a G&T? We aren't all armchair warriors and some armchair warriors haven't always sat in armchairs.. Some were busy voting conservative eh Bridge? I've never voted anything but Labour myself, but there again, I don't decry my own privileged existence from my armchair like some, me old duck. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 06 Aug 14 - 06:07 PM "two blokes from our pit managed to get NUM funds sequestrated" Yeah you did your bit for the strike all right. That and getting a striker banged up. You, socialist? My arse. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 07 Aug 14 - 03:45 AM Don't be stupid. The SWP scum didn't work down the pit. His sort were the bussed in agitators who stood at the back shouting Charge! at Orgreave. The local NUM branch secretary gave evidence for the prosecution too and a written statement by Ken Capstick, Scargill's henchman helped distance the union from the criminal actions using SWP funds too. Tell you what Bridge , a hell of a lot of scabs in your book. In fact as less than 2% of men stated out till the end, you can hire out my garden shed to hold a reunion for them. Armchair comfortable, is it? |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 07 Aug 14 - 04:31 AM Too much red wine, middling-rich-Mither. "stated out" indeed. Scargill did what he had to do. Shame he was suckered into a trap of Thatcher's making. The world would be a better place if he had brought her down. The preponderance of criminals at Orgreave were the lackeys of the capitalist state who fitted up so many innocent demonstrators. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 07 Aug 14 - 04:41 AM Zzzzzz Your vantage point must give you wonderful insight. We didn't pay Scargill to remove a government. We paid him to represent miners. So a failure then. By the way, his shenanigans over our London flat show his good capitalist colours. Even used Thatcher's right to buy in order to line his pockets. Ask The NUM what they think of him now. I told you before. I always kept two bottles of cheap poor tasting champagne. I opened one last year and eventually I will open the second one. I will have to keep an eye on the news though. His demise won't be newsworthy. He didn't do anything worth noting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: The Sandman Date: 07 Aug 14 - 12:06 PM musket,stick to the subject, this is not about scargill, grow up you childish booby. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Aug 14 - 01:02 PM See statement from MI5 Security Service- "Does MI5 investigate trade unions and pressure groups." The note spells out the ground rules. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 07 Aug 14 - 02:19 PM I shall when a wealthy solicitor who doesn't practice what he preaches stops calling me and thousands of others scabs. I will carry on whilst he blames me for The SWP endorsing threatening my wife and baby. (For going to college as per union advice.) No. Mr Bridge has no fucking clue what he rattles on about at times. I'm an ex miner and have a greyhound to prove it. He's a solicitor and has a Volvo to prove it. The difference being I don't pretend to have solidarity with those I exploit. I never voted conservative either. The cabinet minutes by the way Dick, are what they are. The SWP wish to capitalise on it is a non event and a bit desperate if you ask me. Yesterday's story and yesterday's political movement trying to make something of it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Richard Bridge Date: 07 Aug 14 - 06:20 PM Turd. You brag about your wealth all the time. I've never exploited anyone, and all four of my Volvos are old collectors cars. I seem to remember you sounding off about your Porsche or something like that. Typical nouveau riche. You betrayed your fellow workers, and vilify a man who was doing the best for his fellow workers - which getting shot of Thatcher would indeed have been. I bet you idolise the Lord Mandelson. And Tony B. Liar. That's your sort of Labour Party. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: Musket Date: 08 Aug 14 - 04:10 AM I don't need to vilify Scargill on my own. Every living ex miner does though. The Porsche by the way is a Merc SLK AMG now. Rather good and bought with the proceeds of expanding business and creating employment for many before letting others carry on the mantle and taking a back seat to enjoy life. That's real employment in the manufacturing sector by the way. As you claim more than one car I'll have to admit the BMW as the more practical car. Funnily enough, I never "brag" about anything. I defend success and contribution to society that pays for a welfare state in the first place though, which top trumps chippy spartist envy each and every time. There are people on this forum who think you have to apologise for success. Fuck em. We owe it to the next generation to get on in life and exploit opportunity. A bit like a blue chip education including, say at random, Nottingham University, and then a career in, again at random , law. Such trappings allow the luxury of patronising people you haven't a fucking clue about living lives you can't even comprehend. |
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Subject: RE: BS: no reason for being spooked From: GUEST Date: 08 Aug 14 - 07:38 PM "I don't need to vilify Scargill on my own. Every living ex miner does though." Bollocks talked by a tory scab. When the miners lost in 1984, all workers lost their employment rights. You helped, thanks. |
