Campaigning is never easy but it gets much harder when you're intimidated or even infiltrated. Whilst it's best not to be paranoid, recent local examples illustrate that both these do indeed go on. As announced in The Times (10/9/4), MI5 is set to send undercover agents in to animal rights groups (not that they have ever done that before!) in order "to help to fight animal rights extremists amid growing fears that their intimidation is undermining key British industries". According to The Times, the impetus comes from the National Association of Pension Funds, whose members manage hundreds of billions of pounds on behalf of pension fund members. Pension Funds are not always the most ethical, often investing in the arms trade. Strangely enough, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) was infiltrated by a private spy firm for several years at the end of the 1990s with national and local members' houses being watched and their lives recorded in great detail, as well as spies at meetings including the local Stop the Hawk Deal, with a several thousand page report prepared and passed on to British Aerospace (now known as BAe Systems).
Recently, the BNP has claimed to have had operatives working in Manchester groups. According to their press release, "for the last year 2 BNP students, barely out of their teens, have acted as moles for the BNP. University of Manchester chemistry student Joe Finnon and MMU politics student Diane Stoker have spent the last 12 months actively campaigning within every prominent left wing group in Britain. From the most inaptly named Socialist 'Workers' Party to Unite Against Fascism".
Even taking this with a pinch of salt it should sound some warning bells. The Networking Newsletter would not recommend groups vet their members and we are quite sure that most groups believing in freedom of information openly discuss their aims. However, it may occasionally be worth not giving ultra-sensitive tasks to complete newcomers.
Equally worrying is intimidation. It's one thing to stand on a picket line and expect workers to be upset you seem to be questioning their personal views and to be threatening their family's livelihood. However, during the pickets outside Marks and Spencers in July - a picket to raise public awareness that M&S has strong pro-Israeli views & links - Zionists both Israeli and British, worked with M&S security to get the picket closed down. They even announced in the Manchester edition of the Jewish Telegraph that they intended to attack the picket and called for others to join them.
On the day in question, 20-25 Israeli and British supporters of the neo-fascist Likud tried to threaten the 50-plus supporters of the M&S picket and create disorder so that the police would intervene and close the picket down. Hurling abuse and threats, they physically attacked picketers who were filming the attack. The M&S picket refused to be provoked by the Zionists and eventually they withdrew, defeated.
Whilst the Networking Newsletter supports free speech, so that people can form their own views from a stimulating debate, we do not think that Likud are promoting their cause by resorting to violent tactics. Indeed, the M&S picket continues: every Saturday afternoon, outside the main store at the bottom of Market Street.
Michael
Take our survey