Britain: The Democracy that Never Was

News:

Mark Hollingsworth wrote in the Guardian that “For years, I suspected MI5 interfered in the miners’ strike. The truth was even more shocking than I thought.” That was the title of his article on the 7th of March, 2024 about a formerly hidden document that “reveals how the security service abused its power to help the government win.”

Comment:

Before looking into what has been exposed, it is worth pointing out that Mr. Hollingsworth has previously authored books about the dirty dealings of spy agencies. Amongst them is a book called Agents of Influence, which according to its review, “reveals the secret history of an intelligence agency gone out of control, accountable to no one but itself and intent on subverting Western politics on a near-inconceivable scale.” That book was about the Soviet KGB, which “seduced parliamentarians and diplomats, infiltrated the highest echelons of the Civil Service, and planted fake news in papers across the world.” The strange thing is that this description fits equally well with the behavior of home-grown forces such as the UK’s secret police called MI5 that subvert the UK just as the Soviet KGB did. Unlike the KGB, however, MI5 has significantly contributed to making UK democracy little more than a façade.

Hollingsworth’s article is about a memorandum stamped “Secret and Personal” that was, sent to the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, in February 1985. This document gives details of secret meetings between an MI5 officer and UK government officials that aimed, and in fact succeeded, in breaking the power of the National Union of Mineworkers during the miners’ strikes 40 years ago. The former head of the security service Stella Rimington, declared that the role of the security service during the 1984-85 miners’ strike was: “We limited our investigations to the activities of those who were using the strike for subversive purposes. The reports we issued to Whitehall during that time were most carefully scrutinised to ensure they referred only to matters properly within our remit.”

Hollingsworth revealed how MI5 helped trace hidden funds of the National Union of Mineworkers and passed the information on to an accounting firm called Price Waterhouse that had been trying without success to trace the accounts after a court issued a fine to the union for refusing to end its strike. However, the only thing surprising about Hollingsworth’s account is that he could have been in some way surprised, as others have revealed much more shocking information about covert operations against the miners!

Subversive action by the UK against its own citizens did not end with the miners’ strikes. Last year a truly disgusting scandal called ‘spy cops’ was reported by retired judge Sir John Mitting. It documented how at least 139 undercover police officers infiltrated more than 1000 political groups in the UK. The political groups were generally left leaning groups or temporary campaigning groups that were attracting media attention over specific instances of injustice. These undercover operations led to at least 20 officers engaging in sexual relations with women from these organizations and campaigning groups. Some engaged in deceitful relations with the women that lasted many years and some even had children with these women.

Just one question remained in my mind until a few days ago. Why did the government allow a public enquiry to reveal these details? The simple answer would be that they had little choice as several of these deceitful and demeaning undercover operations were discovered and exposed by the victims. However, these operations are not needed anymore, as the UK has now adopted the path of direct political repression against its citizens; in the name of protecting them and their democracy as they say.

Michael Gove announced a new definition of extremism and has created a list of ‘extreme’ organizations, which though not banned and placed on a list of allegedly ‘terrorist organsiations’, as happened with Hizb ut Tahrir, these organisations, labelled as ‘extreme’, will be marginalized by the government’s move. As the months go by, and as British people get poorer and poorer, their government fails to give them prosperity and seeks to placate them by offering cheap victories against so-called ‘thought crimes’ instead.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Abdullah Robin