Blacklist blog

IN THE MATTER OF THE UNDERCOVER POLICING INQUIRY

IN THE MATTER OF TRANCHE 3

Opening statement on behalf of the Blacklist Support Group

 

1. Undercover police officers infiltrated and spied on trade unions. They reported on union meetings, union activists, union campaigns, and industrial disputes. Their intelligence reports were added to Special Branch Registry Files, to the National Domestic Extremism Database and were forwarded to MI5. For decades, these police and security service records were used to blacklist trade union and leftwing political activists from employment. Through official and unofficial routes, the police intelligence was disseminated to government departments, major private sector employers and unlawful blacklisting organisations such as the Economic League and the Consulting Association.
2. While the police have publicly acknowledged their wrongdoing and apologised to CPs in some areas under investigation by this Inquiry, blacklisting is an area of the Public Inquiry that remains highly contested. Despite documentary evidence to the contrary, the police downplay and, in some cases, deny that any blacklisting of activists took place. BSG challenge this police narrative. BSG demand the opportunity to place into the public domain evidence of industrial scale blacklisting of leftwing and union activists by the British state.
3. Blacklist Support Group (‘BSG’) is the justice campaign set up by union members victimized by construction companies, after the exposure of the Consulting Association blacklist in 2009. MPs were so appalled by the Consulting Association that a select committee investigation produced seven separate reports on the scandal, and legislation was passed, making blacklisting trade unionists unlawful.
4. Blacklists do not compile themselves. Every multi-national company involved in the Consulting Association appointed a senior executive to act as the ‘main contact’. Their role was to both supply information about activists to the industry wide blacklist and to receive information about job applicants from it. Most of the information they sent to the blacklist came from managers on their building sites, but some of the intelligence they fed into the Consulting Association originated from undercover policing. Where entries on Consulting Association blacklist files record events that took place in the evening or at the weekend outside of the workplace and political in nature, these are the most likely to have originated from somewhere other than an industry source.
5. In 2015, the BSG, along with nine individual blacklisted activists, were granted core participant status in this Inquiry.
6. This Tranche 3 statement is supplementary to the BSG Tranche 1 Opening Statement from 2020[1] and the witness statements of the individual blacklisted CPs. This opening statement responds in part to police documents the Inquiry has disclosed to BSG; in part it explains what has been uncovered so far; but the statement also highlights where opportunities have been missed to uncover the full truth of this national scandal. The BSG collective statement does not only reflect the opinions of the BSG CPs, many blacklisted workers were actively consulted on its contents.
7. Union activists have known for a long time that they were spied on by the Special Demonstration Squad, not because of information provided by the police but due to research carried out by campaigners and investigative journalists. Due to the ‘neither confirm nor deny’ strategy of the Metropolitan Police, knowledge in the way of documentary evidence was not confirmed until BSG received disclosure in December 2024.
8. Whenever state and corporate abuses find their way into the mainstream media, there is quite rightly a public outcry. It must therefore be in the public and national interest that covert state interference into the democratic process and trade union activities is subject to public scrutiny. State interference includes the decades long activity of acting as a taxpayer funded vetting service for major employers in both the public and private sector. This was a joint corporate and state operation to deny leftwing, political and union activists employment or promotion opportunities in large parts of the UK economy. In all but name, this was a state orchestrated blacklist against the left.
9. BSG’s involvement in this Inquiry has two primary aims: bringing state spying on trade unions into the public domain and trying to uncover how and why the police and the security services shared intelligence about union and political campaigners with major employers and blacklisting organisations.
10. Despite repeated claims that the SDS deployments were only about gathering intelligence on subversives planning to overthrow parliamentary democracy, the Inquiry has heard oral evidence and disclosed documents indicating that undercover officers were actively engaged in collecting as much intelligence about leftwing activists as possible. SDS officers were directed by senior MPSB officers and MI5 to gather any information considered of value, and that included information about union membership and activities[2]. And as the UCO turned whistleblower Peter Francis explains in his witness statement: within Special Branch, “trade unionists were seen by nature as being subversive”.[3] This mindset is hardly surprising given that Margaret Thatcher famously described unions as “the enemy within”.
11. The police outlook towards trade unions can be observed in the language used in reports to describe perfectly lawful union activity. An illustration comes from Assistant Chief Constable Anton Setchell, who was the head of National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU), a unit that assisted with the compilation of the National Domestic Extremism Database and spied on trade unions, leftwing journalists and campaigns such as CND. In MPS-0726645-CVF-BSG[4] Setchell is asked about trade unions and “states that the unions were holding the Jubilee Line contractors to ransom, by holding up all of the work on such a high profile job”. This is how perfectly legal strike action to improve workers’ safety and increase wages are described by an officer who ran one of the UK largest political policing units. Little wonder that deployed UCO’s also describe perfectly legal union activism as subversion. Setchell’s quote also implies that NETCU may have been interested in unions on the Jubilee Line. Electricians who worked on the Jubilee Line Extension in the 1990’s are amongst the most blacklisted workers in the entire industry. No police intelligence regarding the Jubilee Line has been disclosed by the Inquiry to BSG.
12. SDS undercover officers, while on deployment, spied on and wrote reports on union activists. The more references to potential violence, the more likely the UCO’s were to continue in their deployment for another year. These reports were added to Special Branch Registry files and forwarded to MI5 via Box 500.[5] Where a union was mentioned, the files were copied to the registry files relating to specific trade unions. By way of example, the Special Branch registry file number for UCATT (now merged with UNITE) was 400/86/19, the National Union of Railworkers (now RMT) was 400/84/219, and the civil service union CPSA (now part of PCS) was 400/87/129. In some cases, individual union branches, particular industrial disputes and rank & file campaign groups had their own Special Branch files. Disclosure of all such SB files would allow for the full extent of spying on the labour movement to be evaluated. To BSG’s knowledge, none of the trade union files have been disclosed, even to FBU, UNITE and NUM, all of which have CP status in this Inquiry.
13. During oral evidence HN20 Tony Williams admitted to not only spying on but also writing leaflets for the London Workers Group during the 1980’s. He repeatedly reported on the union membership and activities of individuals and filed SDS reports on the relatively minor Garners Steak House dispute. He admitted that in four years of surveillance, he witnessed no major criminality; but the activists shared “anti-establishment ideals”. He was debriefed by MI5. What a waste of taxpayers’ money.
14. One of the UCO’s who targeted BSG CPs was Carlo Soracchi. Despite claiming that he was never directed to infiltrate trade unions, Soracchi’s witness statement is forced to acknowledge the amount of information he supplied about trade unions. Soracchi provided intelligence on members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT), Fire Brigades Union (FBU), National Union of Teachers (NUT) and UNISON. He reported on an anti-cuts campaign led by Hackney UNISON and a UNISON shop steward who was standing for election, plus a strike by refuse collectors. None of the intelligence about trade unions or union activists comes close to subversion, the nearest it gets to disorder is when he claims a large turnout may potentially lead to a road being blocked.
15. Another UCO who spied on unions was Peter Francis. His witness statement highlights a number of union members he reported on from UCATT, UNISON, National Union of Teachers, Fire Brigades’ Union, RMT, PCS, CWU (para 525) and various picket lines, including at Hillingdon Hospital and Mount Pleasant Sorting Office that he attended. He even reported on internal union election campaigns and internal union factions. Francis explicitly equates agitating for industrial action with subversion:

“In any political grouping, I would expect the members of trade unions to have a political file… The subversive activity I witnessed firstly was the positioning of members into unions in an attempt to organise more industrial unrest” [6]

16. Some strikes do of course impact the economy; but equating them to overthrowing parliamentary democracy is hyperbolic.
17. The following section discusses a small selection of police files disclosed to individual union activists granted CP status within the trade union strand of the Inquiry.
18. Brian Higgins is a Scottish bricklayer. A series of disclosed Special Branch files from 1984-85, written by HN82 (cover name Nicholas Green) report on speeches made by Higgins, who was appealing for solidarity during a dispute with the building contractor John Laing. Higgins was one of half a dozen bricklayers involved in industrial action about direct employment that resulted in them being locked out of their job. Collectively they were known as the ‘Laing’s Lock Out Committee’. Laing’s most prestigious contract at the time was the construction of the British Library by St Pancras station, which was a target for the pickets. Taking place at the same time as the miners’ strike, the dispute gained a high profile and saw a High Court injunction being granted against all the pickets.
19. Higgins attended a leftwing meeting in The Cock Tavern, a pub close to the library asking for solidarity. The financial appeal leaflet for the dispute and an 8-page rank & file paper called Building Worker are included in one of the UCO reports 400/84/165. A rank-and-file union publication campaigning for better safety on building sites and a financial appeal letter for striking bricklayers is not
20. More than a decade later, Brian Higgins was again the target of undercover SDS reporting. During a five-year deployment in the late 1990’s, HN15 UCO Mark Jenner claimed to be a carpenter. Using the false name Mark Cassidy, he infiltrated the Colin Roach Centre (CRC) in Hackney, which campaigned on police accountability, but was home to political and union campaigns, including the Hackney Trade Union Resource Centre.
21. MPS-0245669 is a file compiled by Jenner dated 14-11-95 about Brian Higgins, his leading role in Building Worker Group (BWG) is explicitly mentioned in the file, as is BWG’s affiliation to the CRC.[7] The file also includes a list of Brian Higgins ‘main associates’. The same phrase with a list of names resurfaces as an entry in Higgin’s blacklist file dated October 1996. According to Dave Smith (who has viewed the entire Consulting Association blacklist at the Information Commissioners Office HQ) this is the only time the phrase ‘known associates’ with a subsequent list of other individuals appears on any of the blacklist files. Higgins’ blacklist file of that time also contains numerous documents published by the CRC.
22. Jenner became an active member of BWG, and joined the Hackney branch of UCATT, attending meetings, conferences and picketlines. ‘Alison’ a CP in this Inquiry who was deceived into a long-term relationship with Mark Jenner has spoken about the pages of handwritten notes that he would bring back from every union meeting. In his witness statement, Jenner acknowledges his membership of UCATT but completely downplays his role spying on trade unions and the leading role he took in the BWG. For example, his witness statement mentions the Brian Higgins Defence Campaign (BHDC) which was set up following a defamation case brought by a UCATT official against Higgins following a letter he had published in the Irish Post. Jenner claims he simply sat on the committee on behalf of the CRC because no one else was available. But in a letter written dated 15-4-97, Brian Higgins explains that “Mark Cassidy [HN15 UCO Mark Jenner] of BWG is secretary of BHDC”[8]. In another letter 20-4-97, Higgins writes to Jenner/ Cassidy about discussions he has had with his legal representative Tamsin Allen from the solicitors firm Birnbergs and a UCATT campaign for direct employment. We can only imagine how much more detail was relayed when Jenner met Higgins face to face.
23. Jenner appears to suffer amnesia regarding many aspects of his deployment. For example, the word ‘safety’ does not appear a single time in his 153-page witness statement. Yet, multiple UCATT members claim that he attended various events in the 1990’s organised by the well-respected Construction Safety Campaign (CSC), including a social at Camden Workers Club at Lyndhurst Hall, and a conference in Birmingham sponsored by UCATT to ban asbestos. One blacklisted worker remembers an occasion when he bumped into Jenner “he was sitting to the side of the front of a national CSC march over asbestos that was about to start, seemingly taking copious notes”. Each of the occasions, Jenner was in the company of other BWG activists.
24. On 21 March 1997, Jenner wrote a letter using the name Mark Cassidy to various organizations regarding the establishment of a new Building Workers Safety Campaign, which he described as a ‘rank- and-file organization run by building workers’, asking for support in getting ‘information on deaths on building sites’ in order to visit ‘the site within one week after the event and ask workers to stop work’.
25. The identical letter was sent to Haringey and Hammersmith UNISON branches, TGWU North London Textile branch and CPSA (civil service union). The police spy also sent the letter to the safety campaign the London Hazards Centre, and the charity Inquest, which provides free legal advice to people bereaved by a death in police custody. Why a charity dealing with deaths in custody would be an obvious source of information about deaths on building sites is difficult to fathom but it again raises question of public interest as to what the UCO was trying to achieve.
26. During research for the book Blacklisted, multiple interviewees recalled Mark Cassidy [HN15 UCO Mark Jenner] attending UCATT meetings about holiday pay in 1998, and Joint Sites Committee meetings held in various locations in central London. Jenner was at the Dhal Jenson dispute in Waterloo in 1999 when JSC activists organised a successful picket over several weeks’ unpaid wages.
27. John Jones is an Irish bricklayer, a long standing UCATT and BWG activist. He was blacklisted for his union activities and granted CP status in this Inquiry. On 1^st December 1995, Jenner wrote a report[9] MPS-0245736 about an industrial dispute at the London Borough of Southwark, where Jones, and another worker were fighting to retain their jobs following outsourcing of their roles to the building contractor Botes in a TUPE transfer. Jones eventually won an employment tribunal claim for unfair dismissal.
28. Jenner’s report claims that Jones was “acquiring celebrity status” after being invited to speak at various union meetings and a book launch. The report records the attendance of Brian Higgins, Frank Smith and others outside the council depot. Jenner goes out of his way to describe the UCATT convenor at Southwark as “an argumentative loudmouth”. Jenner fails to mention in the SDS report nor in his witness statement that while undercover on the Southwark picket line he personally handed out flyers calling for the elected convenor to be sacked. The SDS report records the Special Branch registry file numbers for Higgins, Smith and another prominent blacklisted activist.
29. In his witness statement Jenner justifies the report by citing a potential threat to disrupt a council meeting. None of the union members involved in the dispute remember any disruption to council meetings, nor any threats to disrupt such meetings. They admit to talking to councillors on an individual basis and “lobbying outside the Town Hall a couple of times before council meetings and a Housing Committee meeting”. Jenner’s reporting exaggerates the perfectly normal practice of lobbying elected politicians as ‘disruption’. Even taking Jenner’s own description at face value, it falls miles short of ‘subversion’.
30. The Southwark dispute, like so many others cited in SDS reports are low level, fairly standard examples of industrial action around saving jobs or unpaid wages. The kind of thing that occurs up and down the country every week. Why these disputes, and campaigning about safety on building sites would be of interest to SDS in their covert fight against subversion is unfathomable. Unless of course, gathering intelligence on union activists was always an implied part of any SDS deployment.
31. Police spying on trade union members is one thing, the sharing of police intelligence with employers and blacklisting organisations is quite another.
32. This statement will now move onto the more disputed topic: the British state involvement in blacklisting its own citizens due to their political and trade union activism.
33. The UCPI Terms of Reference when set up in 2015 had as a key purpose to: “examine the motivation for, and the scope of, undercover police operations in practice and their effect upon individuals in particular and the public in general”
34. The Inquiry has carried out some important work in forensically questioning SDS officers and their managers about the upstream justification for undercover police surveillance of political campaigners, the intrusive practices of undercover deployment, and the effect the human rights abuses had on the health of those spied upon. Yet the downstream dissemination of police intelligence and the impact it had on those spied upon also falls squarely within the purpose of the Inquiry’s terms of reference. Yet investigation into vetting and blacklisting of activists has been superficial at best.
35. Sharing police intelligence with major employers leads to the dismissal and blacklisting of leftwing activists. Dissemination of intelligence to universities and bodies responsible for providing grant funding to community groups (sometimes critical of the police) distorts academic research. Blacklisting in employment and in academic research has a huge negative impact upon the future activists’ employment prospects and their ability to financially provide for their families and intentionally skews democratic debate in the public domain. After BSG submitted a formal complaint to the IPCC[10], Operation Reuben[11] was set up by the police to investigate the allegations. Reuben concluded:

“Police, including Special Branches and the Security Services supplied information to the blacklist funded by the country’s major construction firms, The Consulting Association and other agencies.  Operation Herne finds this allegation is Proven.

Special Branches throughout the UK had direct contact with the Economic League, public authorities, private industry and trade unions”[12]

36. During the T1 Opening Statement, Counsel for the Inquiry stated that:

“The reporting of undercover officers refers to trade unions and to the trade union activities of some trade union members. There are concerns about why such information was recorded and what it was used for; in particular, whether it was passed to those who blacklisted workers”.[13]

37. Since the Opening Statement, the Inquiry has disclosed multiple Special Branch files that record where an activist’s employer has been informed of their political activities. Multiple witness statements from undercover police officers have acknowledged that SDS gathered intelligence was used for vetting purposes. Yet despite all the good intentions of Counsel for the Inquiry, probing questioning about how information on individuals was shared with government departments, major employers and blacklisting organisations, and for what purpose the intelligence was used (especially in relation to employment) has been notable by its almost complete absence.
38. When undercover officers and their managers have been asked pat-a-cake questions by the Inquiry or by Operation Reuben on whether they were personally involved in blacklisting while in the SDS, they universally answered “no”. In MPS-0721997-CVF-BSG an SDS manager is recorded as having no knowledge of Economic League or the Consulting Association. [14] In MPS-0723181-CVF-BSG another document disclosed by Operation Herne, HN53 states that he has no personal knowledge of blacklisting.[15] In MPS-0726614-CVF-BSG, handwritten notes from telephone interview for Operation Herne, HN337 again claims “No knowledge of blacklisting”.
39. None of this is in the least bit surprising, because providing information about activists to government departments and big business was not carried out by SDS foot soldiers, nor by their immediate SDS managers. Nobody from BSG has ever suggested this, any repeating of the non-allegation by the police or their legal representatives is pure ‘smoke and mirrors’. Yet it happens repeatedly. For example, the disclosed document MPS-0738126-CVF-BSG is a report of an Operation Herne meeting with Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner, Sir John Smith. Below is a record of part of the questioning between DCI Rob Andrews (RA) and John Smith (JS).

“RA – One of the core participants in the Public Inquiry are the Consulting Association Blacklist, does that ring any bells with you at all? Its all around the alleged transfer of information to individuals from the Consulting Association who then told the big companies at the time (such as Balfour Beatty etc..)

JS – And that was operated by Special Branch was it?

RA – The allegation we have is that SDS officers were doing that. We are going to release a report in the near future, but we can’t find any evidence that the SDS were doing that, but we have evidence that Special Branch were doing it. That will come out at some point. It wasn’t just a Met problem, it was nationwide

JS – That means nothing to me.”[16]

40. Overlooking the schoolboy error in relation to the Consulting Association being a core participant, and the fact that no one has ever accused the SDS officers of directly handing over intelligence to the blacklist DCI Rob Andrews is at least frank about the fact that the sharing of information with blacklisting organisations was carried out nationally by Special Branch.
41. In reality, the important task of dissemination of intelligence to business was carried out by multiple police units outside of the SDS. Where information is in the public domain Special Branch C-Squad, MPSB Industrial Section, National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NECTU), National Domestic Extremism Database, Met Police SO15, Operation Fairway and MI5 and the official government body UK Security Vetting are all police units and government agencies heavily involved in supporting industry with vetting/ blacklisting job applicants. In MPS-0721968-CVF-BSG-2 Robert Potter states that “R squad was involved with vetting”.[17] It is obvious that a full investigation of police collusion in blacklisting would require the Inquiry to thoroughly investigate what happened to intelligence gathered by SDS and NPOIU once it left the undercover police units.
42. The UCPI Terms of Reference set out the Scope of the Inquiry as:
    • “The Inquiry’s investigation will include, but not be limited to, whether and to what purpose, extent and effect undercover police operations have targeted political and social justice campaigners.
    • The Inquiry’s investigation will include, but not be limited to, the undercover operations of the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit”. [18]
43. So, following UCO gathered intelligence outside of the SDS and NPOIU is part of the Inquiry’s remit.
44. Operation Reuben accepts that Special Branch and MI5 shared information about activists with public and private sector employers and with the notorious blacklisting organisations the Economic League and the Consulting Association. This is no longer conjecture by trade unions and activists, this is a fact acknowledged by the police. Unfortunately, after more than a decade since it was set up, the Inquiry has failed to investigate the mechanics of this state orchestrated blacklisting operation.
45. Various police witness statements state that they were aware that intelligence was used for ‘vetting purposes’ – a conveniently euphemistic term for blacklisting. For example, in the disclosed witness statement for HN76 (MPS-0748787-CVF-BSG), the SDS officer admits reporting on an activist’s job application, describing how:

“the onward provision of intelligence would have been carried out by the SDS office… I was not aware of any of my reporting having been passed to the Home Office. I would not be surprised if it was, in that instance, given that [redacted] was applying for a vetted role… I do not know whether any of my reports were used to blacklist individuals from certain jobs or industries. I would not have thought that was the purpose of my reporting. If someone was applying for a vetted role then being a member of [redacted] is likely to be relevant, so I see why in limited circumstances this information may have been passed on”.[19]

46. During Tranche 2, a disclosed MI5 note from 9^th June 1983 records what happened to a member of the Socialist Workers Party spied on by SDS:

“it was likely that her employment with [a government body] would be terminated. We agreed that as she had been an active member and it was a big branch there was no danger to the SDS source even if she attributed her dismissal to her SWP membership”. [20]

47. The above are just two of multiple examples where British citizens were denied employment or dismissed from their jobs because of intelligence gathered by undercover SDS officers after it was added to a Special Branch Registry File or forwarded to MI5 via Box 500. It makes no difference if the process is described as vetting or blacklisting, the effect is exactly the same. Workers were unemployed because of their political beliefs; families struggled to pay their bills causing tensions and contributing to poor mental health, and in some cases suicides. Unemployment due to reporting from UCO’s that was based on a police mindset that viewed leftwing activists with suspicion and conflated perfectly normal political and union activities with violent subversion.
48. Yet even though many of the SDS officers and managers went onto to work in MI5, MPSB C-Squad and the MPSB Industrial Section, not a single police witness has faced more than the most cursory questions on their roles outside of the SDS, or of their knowledge of sharing intelligence with third parties outside of the SDS. The superficial questioning of police officers in relation to blacklisting is in stark contrast to the in-depth intrusive questioning of female activists (many of whom appear on the Consulting Association blacklist) in relation to intimate relationships with undercover officers. Women clearly triggered and often in tears, have been being repeatedly asked in minute detail to recall “who made the first move?” Whereas in relation to blacklisting, former UCO’s and managers brushed aside one or two perfunctory questions with vague references to ‘vetting’ before questioning moved on to other issues.
49. BSG argue that the Inquiry’s entire approach to the issue of blacklisting is fundamentally flawed. Referring to disclosed SB files, Operation Reuben and questioning a handful of ex-UCO’s and their managers about blacklisting will result in any findings being based on the failing memories of a small cohort of police officers. Where documents and witnesses refer to vetting and vetted posts there has been no deeper investigation of the vetting system: what the criteria is, how many job applicants are covered by it? What is needed is an overview of how information is disseminated to government departments and private sector employers, and how the vetting system works. That way, SDS gathered intelligence can be positioned within the whole system. If the Inquiry does have a much wider investigatory strategy, it is impossible to discern, as not a single word on blacklisting or vetting appeared in the much publicised 109 pages of the UCPI Interim Report.
50. The failure to fully investigate blacklisting is either a remarkable lack of curiosity, or an intentional self-imposed restriction of the Inquiry’s terms of reference. Either way it is against the public interest and is a failure to fulfil the Inquiry’s terms of reference as laid out by Parliament.
51. The giant elephant in the room that the Inquiry seems intent not to consider, is the UK Security Vetting (UKSV), the government department that now carries out the UK’s state sanctioned vetting process. UKSV is overseen by the Cabinet Office. Since 2015, the management of UKSV has been privatised to the Canadian multinational CGI[21]: their latest 4-year contract is worth £47.5 million.[22] UKSV is funded by “its customers”: government departments and industry employers checking job applicants[23].
52. According to the National Audit Office, UKSV carried out around 200,000 security checks every year since 2018[24]. Despite how it may be portrayed, only a tiny percentage of vetted roles relate to ‘top secret’ information [these are known as Enhanced or Developed vetting]. However, the vast majority of checks are for: “individuals employed in posts that involve proximity to public figures assessed to be at particular risk…[or] posts that involve unescorted access to certain military, civil, industrial or commercial establishments assessed to be at particular risk”.[25]
53. The scale of the UK state vetting operation makes it clear that vetted roles are not just for high level government positions or scientists dealing with national security secrets but apply to building workers, security guards, cleaners and educators. Given their wide scope, vetting checks could potentially cover vast numbers of job applicants in the civil service or journalism who may come in contact with senior politicians, business leaders, members of the judiciary or aristocracy; or any contractor employed on building an infrastructure project, MOD contract or government offices; or anyone employed in those workplaces once construction is completed.
54. For the avoidance of all doubt, the purpose of the UKSV is not to check whether job applicants have exaggerated their qualifications and work experience or only checking criminal convictions or work visas. There is an expressly stated political aspect to UKSV. In 1994 John Major told parliament the reasoning behind vetting checks, and the criteria used to decide who would be refused work:

“no one should be employed in connection with work the nature of which is vital to the interests of the state who is, or has been involved in, or associated with any of the following activities: … actions intended to overthrow or undermine Parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means; or is, or has recently been: a member of any organisation which has advocated such activities; or associated with any organisation, or any of its members”[26]

55. This is the very same definition of subversion that the police use to justify their spying on leftwing trade union and political activists. The Inquiry has already concluded that this threshold was met by only 3 out of 1000 groups spied on and the intrusive surveillance was not justified. Yet identical parameters were used for decades and are still being used by the UK’s official vetting procedure to this day. Even the most widely applied UKSV security vetting [Level 1B] involves “checks against records held by the UK government or its agencies” and “a check of Security Service Records” [27]
56. Almost all SDS reports were stamped “BOX 500” for dissemination to MI5. The Inquiry has heard that in many cases SDS officers’ targets were specifically identified by the security services. The “Security Service Records” used for “vetting” workers are packed with intelligence gathered by covert human intelligence sources; either undercover SDS, NPOIU, MI5 officers or informants cultivated by Special Branch and the security services.[28]
57. Throughout the Inquiry, SDS intelligence reports have been found to be exaggerated[29], and often lacking any actual evidential basis whatsoever. Yet this flawed definition, and discredited SDS intelligence reports are used to justify blacklisting IT workers, electricians, journalists, security guards and office administrators in both the public and private sector. This affects hundreds of thousands of people, not just a few hundred core participants. Unite the Union estimate that over 10,000 workers on the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station construction project are currently subject to security vetting. It is clearly in the public interest to fully investigate the secret police involvement in the industrial scale blacklisting of trade union and political activists.
58. MI5 records, Special Branch registry files, and most likely the National Domestic Extremism Database (compiled by NPOIU and NETCU) were used in the UKSV checks for almost all of the 200,000 security checks annually. This is not conjecture by activists, the information is hidden in plain sight on government websites. MI5, the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office, the National Police Chief’s Council (formerly ACPO) are all core participants in this Inquiry. They are all fully aware of the state’s vetting procedure, and that intelligence gathered by UCO’s appears on these governmental and security service records used in the process. As are many of their senior managers who have contributed to the Inquiry. [30]
59. Yet to our knowledge none of the above CPs have explicitly mentioned UKSV in their Opening Statements nor has the Inquiry asked them questions about the use of UCO gathered intelligence in the UKSV process. Given the opaqueness of the Inquiry to date and the number of secret hearings that have taken place, it is of course possible that the police and state CPs above have been questioned mercilessly on this very issue. However, a search of “UKSV” or “United Kingdom Security Vetting” on the UCPI website produces nothing.
60. It would be a straightforward task for the Inquiry to ascertain whether an individual with a Special Branch Registry File or who appeared on the National Domestic Extremism Database would be flagged under UK Security Vetting checks. A cross-referencing exercise may provide quantitative data on how many activists every year are denied employment or are dismissed because of the UK state’s vetting procedures. BSG have doubts on whether the figures supplied by the Home Office are likely to be accurate but suggest that the Inquiry at least asks the question, especially given that the Inquiry’s own findings that most SDS target groups did not meet the threshold for violent subversion, and that the majority of people on the National Domestic Extremism Database have committed no crime.
61. The sharing or intelligence about activists by MI5 and Special Branch with government departments has been accepted by a number of state witnesses in the Inquiry. Yet police witnesses have been reticent about acknowledging that private companies were also recipients of intelligence. However, for many years, companies working on MOD and other government projects or who work on critical infrastructure were designated as ‘List X companies’ by the British state. Each List X company was required to establish posts within their corporate structure who would liaise with the MOD or other arms of the state. Specifically, a Board Level Contact, a Security Controller and a Clearance Contact. The Clearance Contact had “responsibility for coordinating appropriate arrangements for the personnel security clearance of employees involved with the contract”.[31]
62. No one can possibly misunderstand this. For decades, the British state provided a vetting service for List X companies. The role of the Security Controller and/or Clearance Contact for a List X company was to liaise with UKSV, or directly with the police or security services to obtain the personal security clearance for their employees and sub-contractors. In the same way that the Main Contact for multinational blacklisting companies liaised with The Consulting Association and the Economic League to check whether job applicants should be denied employment on building projects. It would be reasonable to assume that in many cases they were the exact same individual.
63. One UCO who was prepared to be frank about the use to which his reporting was put is Peter Francis. In his witness statement he states:

“It was my understanding that our intelligence was used to curtail subversive activity in the wider public. That might be through reducing the opportunity for subversive elements through employment checks (ie: vetting, blacklisting). For example, the civil service, BBC and certain companies had a direct line of communication with Special Branch, for vetting purposes, that prevented subversives getting into, or achieving high positions within their organisations. This was referred to as ‘List X’ companies in Special Branch. The Special Branch files, and the intelligence we updated within those files, were used”.[32]

64. BSG wish to acknowledge Peter Francis’s account in respect of one aspect of this scandal that so many others find so difficult to acknowledge.
65. The largest construction multinational companies operating in the UK subscribed to, and their subsidiaries used the blacklisting services of, the Consulting Association. These included Sir Robert McAlpine, Balfour Beatty. AMEC, AMEY, Carillion, Costain, Kier, Skanska, Laing O’Rourke, Vinci, Trafalgar House and BAM Nuttal. [33]
66. The list of employers connected to the Economic League is considerably larger. In its last twenty years of existence over 600 major UK employers paid to use the blacklist, including public sector bodies. These include: Barclays Bank, British American Tobacco, British Telecom, British Leyland, CEGB, Corals Racing, Dunlop, Ford Motor Company, Friends Provident Life, Glaxo, Greater Manchester Economic Development Corporation, Hotpoint, ICI, Legal and General, Lloyds, McDonalds, Magnet Joinery, Nat West Bank, Nestle, Oxford University Appointments Committee, Royal Bank of Scotland, Shell, Tate & Lyle, Vickers, Whitbread.[34]
67. The names of List X companies are not published. Given the Inquiry’s level of security clearance, it would however seem a straightforward task for it to request the identities of List X companies and to then cross-reference the different lists to ascertain which List X companies and public sector employers also subscribed to the Economic League and the Consulting Association. Wherever major employers were both List X companies and subscribers to a blacklisting organisation, they were being provided intelligence from the state about activists which led to activists being denied employment. It is not a stretch of the imagination to conceive that this information was then fed into wider industry blacklists. If a formal request to obtain this information about List X companies has already been made, the BSG applaud the Inquiry for its diligence. If no such request for information has been made: why not?
68. But it was not just the security services that were providing such services to employers. According to the disclosed Met Police document UCPI0000030040 titled Responsibilities of Special Branch Metropolitan Police[35], MPSB R-Squad had responsibility for “Positive Vetting” and “Vetting for Government Departments”.[36] In another document disclosed by the Inquiry MPS-0721968-CVF-BSG-2 (interview notes from Operation Herne’s investigation into police involvement in blacklisting), a Mr. Robert Potter states that “R squad was involved with vetting”.[37]
69. Within Special Branch, liaison with industry was not restricted to R-squad but also occurred in C-Squad. In Tranche 1, the Inquiry was informed that the former head of MPSB C-squad, Bert Lawrenson, who oversaw the gathering of intelligence on the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in 1968, and was closely involved in the setting up of SDS started working for the Economic League upon retiring from the police[38]. Yet not a single police witness has been questioned by the Inquiry about contact with Lawrenson once he started working for the Economic League. Another failure to identify links between the police and blacklisting bodies.
70. In 1970, the MPSB Industrial Unit was set up “with the aim of monitoring trade unionists from teaching to the docks”. The Industrial Unit developed a network of well-placed contacts in industry, including directors of multinational companies, and apparently union General Secretaries. MPSB Industrial Unit officers met with their informants in plush hotels and restaurants to share information about leftwing union activists. A number of SDS officers worked for the Special Branch Industrial Unit and C-squad, either before or after their undercover deployment. Yet not a single SDS officer nor manager giving evidence to this Inquiry has been asked more than one of two perfunctory questions about their role outside of the SDS in C-squad or in MPSB Industrial Unit. Yet another failure by the Inquiry.
71. According to Operation Herne, MPSB had a dedicated officer who was their official liaison officer with the Economic League. No further information is provided, but BSG can only assume that the officer was based within the MPSB Industrial Unit. To BSG’s knowledge, not a single police witness in the Inquiry has been questioned about who this individual was (or whether multiple officers held that role over the years) or what the role entailed. Unions, CPs, journalists and the public might ask why Operation Herne have not been forced to disclose the information they have gathered about Special Branch’s official liaison officer with the Economic League. An inquisitive mind might ask whether there were any police documents that recorded this official liaison with the Economic League. No such documents have been disclosed to BSG – has the Inquiry even asked for them?
72. The BSG T1 Opening Statement accused both the MPSB Industrial Unit and NETCU of routinely sharing information reciprocally with senior business executives from major employers on both a formal and informal basis. The BSG statement identifies DI Gordon Mills of NETCU as having given presentation to an invitation only Consulting Association meeting on 6^th November 2008. The presentation encouraged the companies in attendance to put robust mechanisms in place to stop leftwing job applicants being employed. He was preaching to the converted on that score.
73. In his statement to Operation Reuben, DI Mills claims this was not a meeting of the Consulting Association, and he knew of no contact with the blacklisting organisation. However, the meeting was organised by Ian Kerr, the Consulting Association CEO, who sent out invoices to all attendees, and who confirmed it was a Consulting Association meeting during evidence to the select committee investigation into blacklisting. The Times journalist Billy Kenber interviewed Kerr. When asked about the meeting with NETCU, the man who ran the blacklist answered: “They [NETCU] were seeking a channel to inform construction companies [of the information] they were collecting [and] they were wanted to be able to feed out to the companies”. [39]
74. The Times reported that in return the NECTU officer asked the companies to pass on their information about potential troublemakers. Kerr added that “a two-way exchange of information” opened up following the meeting between the construction blacklist and the police unit’. Ian Kerr has now passed away, so the Inquiry has lost the opportunity to ask him questions. But the journalist who interviewed him is still alive and kicking and would be a source of information relevant to the Inquiry. BSG are unaware whether the Inquiry or Operation Herne have interviewed Billy Kenber. If not, why not?
75. The BSG T1 Opening Statement highlighted that NETCU’s own website boasts about providing information to business. BSG explained how NETCU was set up under the auspices of ACPO and as such was exempt from much public scrutiny, and how FOI requests have been denied stating that no paperwork or electronic records from NECTU exist, that it was all destroyed. BSG described this as a blatant lie. ACPO (now the National Police Chief’s Council) is a CP in this Inquiry. Has the Inquiry asked them to give a full explanation of what actually happened to all the NETCU files?
76. Following the release of the Reuben Report[40], BSG now know that not quite all NETCU documentation was destroyed. DI Mills gave a witness statement to Operation Reuben, as did a civilian worker who was originally scheduled to speak to the Consulting Association. [41]A copy of the NECTU/ TCA meeting Power Point presentation was provided to Reuben.[42] The PowerPoint presentation has not been disclosed by this Inquiry – at least not to BSG.
77. BSG originally called on the Inquiry to investigate what actually happened to all the files that were compiled by NETCU. They contend that they still sit on the National Domestic Extremism Database. What happened to email correspondence and other paperwork? BSG explicitly asked which companies NETCU liaised with. BSG contest police assurances that all records relating to NETCU have been destroyed. If the PowerPoint presentation was miraculously found, what other documentation exists on various servers in different police forces? It is inconceivable that when police officers based in NETCU returned to their own forces that they did not take at least some of the more useful data with them – especially diaries and contact lists.
78. BSG have worked with legal teams on the High Court group litigation, and the ongoing Independent Blacklisting Collusion Inquiry[43], BSG are therefore fully aware of the capabilities of a forensic digital archaeology expert. These professionals are used extensively in criminal trials involving financial fraud. In relation to blacklisting, digital forensics have uncovered deleted emails, spreadsheets and correspondence on corporate wrongdoing going back decades, in some cases from damaged servers. Has this Public Inquiry made any substantive efforts to find out what has happened to many years of NETCU data? Or does the self-imposed restriction by the Inquiry restrict any such investigation to SDS and NPOIU alone?
79. Anton Setchell was the head of NETCU, on leaving the police he went to work as Global Head of Security for the blacklisting company Laing O’Rourke. The disclosed document MPS-0726645-CVF-BSG are notes from a meeting with Anton Setchell carried out in 2013 for Operation Reuben. The document records Setchell as saying: “Laing O’Rourke openly admit their use of the Consulting Association” although he considered the “imaginative recording of the Blacklist records” poor value for money. [44]
80. After the interview took place, Laing O’Rourke went on to acknowledge, pay compensation and make a full public apology in the High Court for their involvement with the construction blacklist. The multi-nationals involved while prepared to apologise after they were caught, refused to use the word ‘blacklisting’ in their apology, but were happy to use the term ‘vetting’. This is because blacklisting is unlawful in many countries around the globe and could lead to a company being removed from lists of approved contractors in the US and Europe. Vetting is seen as a respectable element of the recruitment industry. The police seem equally reticent to use the term ‘blacklisting’ but entirely happy to use the term ‘vetting’.
81. The disclosed document records Setchell accepting that DCI Mills from NETCU gave the presentation on 6^th November 2008. Even explaining that the Consulting Association charged a Laing O’Rourke manager (a former Flying Squad officer) £80 to attend the meeting. Setchell also describes this as a waste of money. In relation to Special Branch liaison with the blacklisting organisations, the disclosed interview notes record: “Setchell stated that he would not be surprised if there were unofficial briefings between Special Branch and Economic League and Consulting Association or other organisations. He had no evidence to suggest that this happened, however he could not rule it out”
82. The kind of unofficial meetings that Setchel was referring to are reported by Operation Reuben. One unnamed DS admits to meeting Jack Winder, the chief executive of the Economic League, on a regular basis in pubs local to New Scotland Yard, and that the EL was a “well-established conduit for information”. The officer claims that the flow of information was only ever one way but then refused to sign the statement [45]. An unnamed DC also describes being “introduced to Jack Winder in the late 1960s and maintained contact a few times a year throughout his career in a pub”. [46]
83. One of the individuals interviewed by Operation Reuben was Dudley Barrett, the former head of industrial relations for the construction company, Costain. As research for Dave Smith’s book, he interviewed Mr. Barrett twice. During the discussions, he explained his role at the Thames Barrier construction project, his role as the Costain main contact plus his relationship with Special Branch, including how they introduced him to the security services. Barret told Mr Smith:

“I was working for MI5 & MI6 while working on the Barrier. Special Branch introduced me to them and we had a meeting in London in a pub near the Thames Barrier with MI5. We just sat talking and they said, we’d like you to find out a few things for us [they asked him did he know certain people]. So I got all that stuff back to them”.[47]

84. Barret openly admitted: “I’m very anti-leftwing”, and his virulently right-wing outlook was obvious throughout the conversations. In Mr Smith’s opinion, he viewed any union activists asking for more pay or organising a strike on a Costain building site as communist troublemakers. For example, he described a group of T&GWU carpenters thus: “everyman who was on the carpenters committee was a commie, marching through town with banners the police just wanted to know who was causing trouble, who was at meetings”.
85. Barrett claimed to have met with Special Branch and MI5 on a regular basis, including taking them to cricket matches and plush restaurants. He explained that he would meet Special Branch:

“Whenever I thought it was necessary or they thought it was necessary. Sometimes we would go 6 months without meeting them. Sometimes you would go 3-4 weeks when you saw then quite frequently.  A few of them became personal friends to be quite honest and vice versa. I can say I was much closer than most people were to them”. 

86. A DC described as a “career Special Branch officer” is quoted in Operation Reuben as saying he/she: “knew [redacted] sociably, attending [redacted] and was invited to a couple of international cricket matches”.[48] MPS-0726840-CVF-BSG are notes from an interview with ‘TW’ dated 30/07/2014 about spying on “subversives within the trade union movement” on behalf of the security services. [49]TW also had regular drinks and attended cricket matches with Dudley Barrett, described as “social relationship building exercises”. TW explained that:

“Dudley was a good contact within the construction industry; however he was just one of many. For example, we also had contacts from the trade unions who appeared to scared of being outflanked by the left. These people would often make approaches to Special Branch personally with offers of assistance.”

87. Mr Smith’s verbatim interview notes record that initially Mr. Barrett claimed that the flow of information was only ever from the company to the police. However, once pressed Mr. Barret conceded that there was in fact a two-way exchange, and such information about individuals would be passed onto the blacklist. However, “They [Special Branch] would only deal with people that they were very very sure of and sound with. Of all the people at my level there were only about 4 or 5 that I knew who actually dealt with them.”
88. The implication was that many other companies had similar relationships with the police that involved reciprocal sharing of information. Barrett evidenced his claims by showing a list of police contacts in his address book. Although redacted, Operation Reuben cites “a regular user of the Economic League and the Consulting Association” as providing a statement and a Special Branch contacts book. The self-confessed blacklister is recorded as saying that “the flow of information was a reciprocal agreement”. Operation Reuben Report[50] (Para 12.12)
89. During Mr Smith’s interview with Barret, he identified Gayle Burton (his former secretary) as his successor at Costain and explained how she continued the close working relationship with Special Branch.
90. BSG has previously identified Burton to the Inquiry, but to this date has received no indication that she has been or even will be questioned by the Inquiry.
91. The crassness of Barret’s statement is typical of the way he spoke throughout the interview with Mr Smith. One can only wonder the depths of the conversation between the construction manager, Special Branch and MI5 spooks when full of booze at a cricket match. In the interview with Barret, he also named full time union officials, including National Executive members and Regional Secretaries who he invited to cricket matches.
92. Put together, the Operation Reuben report[51], disclosed police files and interviews with Dudley Barrett paint a picture of officers from various political police units cultivating business and union informants during regular drinking sessions and social events. The sources had a vested interest in attacking the left. When originating from a senior manager, even if the information only ever flowed from the company to the police, it seems reasonable to assume that this unverified information from virulent anti-left industry sources was recorded somewhere within the Special Branch database. The very police records that are checked for security vetting purposes, result in workers being refused employment. Where the information was supplied by union officials, this would appear to place Special Branch and the security services in a position where they were actively siding with a particular faction in internal union politics. State interference in union democracy is a breach of ILO conventions.
93. Multiple entries on the blacklist files recorded as being supplied by Costain appear to include information that would only be known to the police. For example, Frank Smith’s, blacklist file states that the bricklayer and union activist was “under constant watch (officially) SOURCE 3228”[52]. Another blacklist file entry notes: “Known as Left-Wing activist since mid 1980s SOURCE: 3228 (G.B.)”. This information, supplied by Gayle Burton of Costain is also true, Smith’s Special Branch registry file was opened in 1985, and he was later spied on by UCO’s, Peter Francis, Mark Jenner and  Carlo Soracchi, under direction from MI5. It is hard to conceive how these two pieces of classified information about state spying on Frank Smith could be known by the blacklisting organisation or a construction company without them first originating from the police.
94. Peter Francis admits in his witness statement that he was directed by MI5 and that he provided intelligence about Frank Smith to the security service. In relation the blacklisting, he makes the following remarks:

“I understood that both Special Branch and the security services would want the intelligence about Frank Smith agitating. I was aware from my time in Special Branch that we had contacts within the building trade, who were likely to want to know that he was an agitator and that it was likely that information would be passed on. In understood at the time that there was a chance that Frank would be blacklisted because of my intelligence. However, I had not really thought through the consequences of that blacklisting”. [53]

95. Lisa Tesucher is an American citizen who while living in London in the 1990’s was an active anti-racist campaigner. She was reported on by Peter Francis who was directed by the Home Office to find out information about her residency status. Lisa states that the disclosed reports compiled by Francis are full of inaccuracies, guesses, assumptions, inferences, editorialising, and incorrect conclusions. The police reports led to Lisa having to fight an immigration case when the British government tried to revoke her visa. A long and stressful legal battle took place in which the judge finally ruled in her favour. This was a worrying period in her life and revisiting it has, and is, causing her stress. As a legal decision has already been made based on all the facts of the case, she wishes to draw a line under the topic.
96. Other CPs in this Inquiry are Dan Gilman and Steve Hedley. They were also spied on by SDS officers. In November 1999, the blacklist files of Smith, Gilman and Hedley all record the same incident where they were observed at a protest against the fascist National Front laying a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. The information was again referenced to Gayle Burton from Costain. No arrests were made, and the incident did not appear in the press. Operation Reuben concedes that this information on the blacklist files is also recorded on police intelligence files but states that it was obtained by a uniformed officer from the Territorial Support Group (‘TSG’) rather than a SDS UCO. There are differing opinions about the dependability of the Reuben Report[54] but even if it is accepted that it was a TSG officer who reported on the three union activists, that does not explain how such specific information made its way onto three separate blacklist files.
97. The Cenotaph incident recorded by a TSG officer, the blacklist and Operation Reuben all named Michael Dooley as being present. Dooley is adamant that he did not attend the anti-NF event. Dooley was a leading construction union activist in London throughout the 1990’s, and an anti-racist campaigner but was not involved in any of the anti-fascist campaigns or stewarding groups that the other BSG CP’s led. The police report is simply incorrect, the TSG officer has misidentified one of the people who he spoke to. Yet the very same error appears on a blacklist file.
98. This is not a case of Michael Dooley being coy about his past. Another entry on his blacklist file from November 1999 lists all his criminal convictions from Scotland and England from when he was a youth between 1976 to 1981. The blacklist entry ends with the words “NEW INFORMATION – DO NOT DIVULGE”. His juvenile convictions recorded in his blacklist file are unlikely to have appeared in any public record. His blacklist file even includes a charge for which he was found not guilty.  According to Mr Dooley, the recorded convictions are factually accurate and from his knowledge none of the offences were made public or appeared in any media outlets. How would a manager of a construction company possibly know this information, unless it had been shared by someone from the police?
99. BSG argue that intelligence about the Cenotaph incident, the information about police spying on Frank Smith and the list of juvenile convictions on Michael Dooley’s blacklist file originated from the police. Yet Operation Reuben goes to great pains to suggest other possible, but implausible, sources of the information. Many findings in Operation Reuben remain strongly contested by the BSG. BSG contends that police intelligence about union and leftwing political activists, including that obtained by undercover policing, was and still is shared with major employers via multiple formal and informal routes.
100. As an aside, anti-racism and anti-fascism are supported by trade unions, who are affiliated at national and local level to campaigns such as Unite Against Fascism (UAF), Hope Not Hate (HNH), ANL, YRE and AFA, and an array of more local campaign groups. Unions train their representatives in how to combat the far right and encourage members to attend protests against fascism. However, the political police units wish to categorise such activity- attendance at a protest against the NF is not an indicator of subversion. It is participation in union supported campaigning.
101. Another blacklisted construction worker who was also reported on by Gayle Burton, is a concrete labourer born in Northern Ireland and living in Kent. His blacklist file opens in April 1996 with the entry: “Migratory habits watched with interest. Help appreciated”. Alongside recording multiple jobs where he had been refused employment, in January 1999 a further entry records: “Keeps extremely interesting company – known member of certain factions – do not divulge this without prior discussion. Source 3228 (G.B.)” The Irish worker is not a CP in this Inquiry. But once again the unverified information about his travel arrangements being watched closely and his political affiliations (the implication being he may be some form of terrorist) is supplied by Gayle Burton from Costain, a company identified by Operation Reuben as having close links to Special Branch. It seems much more likely that this very specific information was passed onto Burton by a state source rather than a manager on a Costain building site.
102. On the blacklist file of BSG CP Dave Smith, there are at least two entries where the information most likely originated from a police source. One entry from June 1999, records that Dave Smith was seen at a leftwing meeting in central London with Frank Smith, who is described as “a close friend (no relation)”. In this period, Smith had been or was spied on by Peter Francis and/or Carlo Soracchi who both record multiple meetings attended during that period, where Frank Smith was present. Also in June 1999, Smith’s blacklist file records that he was outside the Bank of England very early in the morning where the Critical Mass slow bike ride took place at the start of the J18 demonstration. Multiple SDS UCO’s were involved in the organisation of J18 and it is likely that Smith was photographed by a FIT officer on the day. Whether the information originally came from a UCO or a uniformed officer, both are more likely than the suggestion that it came from an industry source who conveniently bumped into Smith outside Bank tube that morning.
103. To date, not a single police file has been released to BSG CP Steve Acheson. The blacklisted union activist was almost unemployable for a number of years with a huge impact on his family life. BSG can only assume the lack of disclosure is due to where Steve lived, worked and carried out his activism. Hopefully, police files will be disclosed in Tranche 4 when NPOIU UCO’s were deployed outside of London.
104. The impact of blacklisting spreads wider than just the individual. It affects their families. Brian Higgins spoke of “being under house arrest” and his wife having to take on two jobs due to the lack of money coming into the household. This is a story repeated by many blacklisted workers outside of the Inquiry. Frank Smith describes how it also affected the union movement, “being blacklisted completely turned my life upside down. I struggled to find work, which hit me financially. On top of that it affected by role as an activist. I could not be a shop steward if I was not employed, so I lost my ability to represent and support others in the workplace. What started with these [SDS] reports ended up costing me not just a job, but also my voice and place in the movement”. The impact on the wider union and the workforce was highlighted by the select committee investigation that argued that the deliberate victimization and blacklisting of union safety reps had a negative impact on health and safety in the building industry and was a factor in the appalling fatality rate in the sector.
105. When BSG CPs first thought they had been spied on by UCO’s, they submitted Subject Access Requests to the police[55]. On almost every occasion, they received ‘Neither Confirm Nor Deny’ responses, with national security and ongoing police investigations cited as the reasons for refusing to disclose any files. Under pressure from the media, politicians, legal cases and early stages of this Inquiry the police made statements suggesting that they would release the files as part of the Inquiry process. It is now apparent, that far from releasing all of the police files, or even all of the Special Branch files, either the Inquiry or the police have filtered and then cherry picked which documents to disclose. This is noticeable, as paperwork relating to arrests and convictions referred to in police witness statements are conspicuous by their absence.
106. Those police files that have been disclosed often provide an individual’s Special Branch Registry file reference number, which includes two numbers relating to when the file was first opened.

 

Name	SB Registry File #	Date SGRF Opened	Earliest disclosure
Brian Higgins	RF405/77/353	1977	1984
FrankSmith[56]	RF402/85/271	1985	1994
Dave Smith	RF402/86/204	1986	1994

 

107. For the three CPs named, their disclosed documents start around 8-10 years after their Special Branch files were opened. This appears a common issue amongst the non-State CPs in this Inquiry.
108. Individuals applied for CP status in order gain access to their police records that were denied via the SAR route. There was a legitimate expectation, that the Inquiry would be open, transparent and honest, and CP’s police files would be disclosed in full. This has not happened. BSG are now at the point where an employer can request information about a worker’s police record (for example via a DBS check in education), and a list of previous convictions will be supplied. But if a CP in this Inquiry requests the exact same information from the police or the Inquiry, disclosure of that information is not forthcoming. BSG view this as Kafkaesque in nature.
109. One area that remains to be investigated by the Inquiry is whether police spying on unions and blacklisting was known about by politicians, and quite how far up the chain of command the knowledge went. BSG raised this very question in its T1 Opening Statement. In various police witness statements, it is acknowledged that reports based on SDS intelligence gathering was viewed by Home Secretaries and at Cabinet level.
110. Evidence already in the public domain but not disclosed by this Inquiry confirms that various Prime Ministers participated in discussions about blacklisting of leftwing political and union activists. For example, Cabinet papers from the 1970s CAB-301-661 reveal how following a direct intervention by Prime Minister Edward Heath, the chair of Massey-Ferguson managed to get a private briefing from the permanent secretary about potential troublemakers at his plant. The head of MI5 was present at the meetings where this was discussed. The file also confirms that the policy of referring ‘the enquiring industrialists to unofficial sources’ such as the Economic League was ‘well accepted’. In this case, however, the PM thought ‘Mr Powell of Massey-Ferguson too serious a person to be dismissed with a reference to the Economic League’. The link between official state surveillance and unofficial corporate surveillance is clear for all to see.
111. In 1986, Margaret Thatcher established the Subversion in Public Life (SPL) committee, that included the head of Special Branch and MI5.[57] The SPL created a blacklist of so called ‘subversives’ in the civil service, in reality leftwing union activists, and reported directly to the Prime Minister.[58] BSG raised the SPL in its T1 Opening Statement, but still wait for any investigation into this state orchestrated blacklist.
112. In March 2021, a number of non-state CPs attended a Zoom meeting for parliamentarians organised by Richard Burgon MP to discuss this public Inquiry. One attendee was Lord Tebbit, the former Employment Minister in Thatcher’s cabinet. During the meeting, Dave Smith asked him whether he received reports about trade unions from the security services or Special Branch. Tebbit told all those present that he did receive briefings from Special Branch, and they were so detailed it even included where leftwing trade unionists went on holiday. Following the meeting, Tebbit gave an interview to The Times.[59] At the time, Unite the Union called for Tebbit’s comments to be fully investigated by the Inquiry.[60] Tebbit’s death means another failure to investigate blacklisting.
113. Both the Subversion in Public Life blacklist and private briefings for government ministers about leftwing trade unionists relied on Special Branch files and MI5 records that contained intelligence gathered by UCO’s from SDS.
114. The BSG T1 Opening Statement identified other blacklists beyond construction and Subversion in Public Life. The National Staff Dismissal Register was set up by the National Retail Consortium with a £1million grant from the Home Office. The ‘Not Required back’ (NRB) system was used to remove workers who complained about safety issues on North Sea oil and gas rigs. The Ford Motor Company blacklisting operation made public in the BBC True Spies Has the Inquiry investigated any of these blacklists? Or is this yet another failure?
115. The Inquiry has also made promises to BSG and others that have not been kept. In July 2018, the Chair of the Inquiry held a private meeting with BSG and its legal representatives. Among the issues discussed BSG highlighted the fact that Brian Higgins and John Jones were both seriously ill. BSG requested that, given their age and the state of their health, for any police files relating to the two blacklisted CPs to be released to them while they were able to see and respond to them. Assurances were given in front of witnesses that that would happen. Brian Higgins and John Jones have now both passed away. Neither of them had the opportunity to see their police files or defend themselves against the police allegations.
116. In 2023, Matthew Collins, the ex-BNP activist turned whistleblower now working as a researcher for Hope Not Hate applied for core participant status in this Inquiry, as he felt he may have been spied on during his time as a fascist organiser in South London. In Core Participants Ruling 48 the Inquiry chair refused to grant Collins CP status, but in his refusal stated: “the Inquiry intends to publish before open hearings are held in Tranches 2 and 3 a general statement about such [far-right] deployments which may go a small way to informing submissions by non-state CPs about the issues referred to above”[61]
117. Tranche 2 has been and gone. Tranche 3 is now starting, and to the best of BSG’s knowledge no such statement about the far right has been published by the Inquiry. Or if it has, it is so hidden or so worthless that none of the NSNP CP’s are aware of it.
118. In September 2025, the Inquiry Chair ruled that Dave Smith, as BSG secretary would not be called to give oral evidence nor would he be allowed to present the BSG T3 Opening Statement. During correspondence between BSG lawyers and UCPI, the Inquiry legal team conceded that: “While it is correct for Mr Smith to observe that the Tranche 1 Interim Report did not comment upon blacklisting, it is important to remember that the interim report is just that”.[62]
119. The letter went onto advise BSG that the Chair had already stated that

“more overarching issues [such as blacklisting] may only be safely considered in light of the full evidence of the Inquiry. Such issues may be addressed in future interim reports, or only in the final report of this Inquiry, which will be published after all evidence has concluded… [therefore] criticism of the Chair’s decision making is misplaced.”

120. BSG are told to meekly accept the lacklustre questioning on blacklisting and just wait for the final report at the end of the Inquiry. Given the numerous failures, the many broken promises, the history of the Chair supporting a police narrative over that of CP’s, and the fact that blacklisted workers will not be able to fully challenge the contested police evidence while giving oral evidence, BSG have no intention of keeping a dignified silence nor of placing their trust in the Chair until the final report is published.

Imran Khan  

Imran Khan and Partners

  10 October 2025

[1] https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/20201105-Opening_Statement-Blacklist_Support_Group.pdf

[2] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012, §495]

[3] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012, §524]

[4] MPS-0726645-CVF-BSG

[5] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012, , §551,552]- 400/84/165 -report by HN82

[6] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012]

[7] MPS-0245669

[8] Letter from Brian Higgins dated 15 April 1997

[9] MPS-0245736

[10] BSG complaint to the IPCC

[11] https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part1.pdf , https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part2.pdf

[12] Operation Reuben Para. 4.2 & 13.1.2

[13] Counsel to the Inquiry’s Opening Statement for Tranche 1 Modules 2b and 2c

[14] MPS-0721997-CVF-BSG

[15] MPS-0723181-CVF-BSG

[16] MPS-0738126-CVF-BSG

[17] MPS-0721968-CVF-BSG-2

[18] Terms of reference – Undercover Policing Inquiry

[19] MPS-0748787-CVF-BSG para 89.e

[20] UCPI0000029219/1

[21] https://www.cgi.com/uk/en-gb/cgi-selected-to-provide-the-uk-national-security-vetting-solution

[22] https://www.ukauthority.com/articles/cabinet-office-retains-cgi-for-national-security-vetting-system

[23] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-04-08/45003/#:~:text=United%20Kingdom%20Security%20Vetting%20(UKSV,with%20Cabinet%20Office%20business%20planning.

[24] https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-the-performance-of-uk-security-vetting/

[25] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#counter-terrorist-check-ctclevel-1b, psd-national-security-vetting-booklet.pdf

[26] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199495/cmhansrd/1994-12-15/Writtens-4.html

[27]  https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#counter-terrorist-check-ctclevel-1b

[28] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/united-kingdom-security-vetting-clearance-levels/national-security-vetting-clearance-levels#counter-terrorist-check-ctclevel-1b, See: “What checks are involved”

[29] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012 §24]

[30] https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-the-performance-of-uk-security-vetting/ §2

 

[31]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7562a9ed915d6faf2b292b/Security_Requirements_for_List_X_Contractors.pdf

[32] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012 §595]

[33] Taken from Information Commissioners Office press release 6^th March 2009

[34] https://libcom.org/library/13-appendix-1-companies-supporting-league

[35] https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/UCPI0000030040.pdf

[36] UCPI0000030040

[37] MPS-0721968-CVF-BSG-2

[38] HN366 witness statement

[39] https://www.thetimes.com/article/police-were-briefed-on-industry-extremists-and-bad-eggs-bqdpvnhq56v

[40] [40] https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part1.pdf , https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part2.pdf

[41] Ibid, §12.7 & §12.8

[42] Operation Reuben para 12.7 & Appendix 24

[43] https://ibci.uk

[44] MPS-0726645-CVF-BSG

[45] Operation Reuben Para.12.16, https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part2.pdf (

[46] Operation Reuben Para 12.18

[47] Dudley Barret interview with Dave Smith transcribed notes

[48] Operation Reuben Para 12.19

[49] MPS-0726840-CVF-BSG

[50] [50] https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part1.pdf, https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part2.pdf

[51] Ibid

[52] Christopher Lennon blacklist file

[53] HN43 Peter Francis witness statement dated 11 October 2023 at [UCPI0000036012, §447]

[54][54]https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part1.pdf, https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/disclosure_2022/november_2022/operation-reuben-part2.pdf

 

[55] BSG Subject Access request to the Met

[56] MPS-0245736

[57] National Archive document: CAB-301-485

[58] National Archive document: CAB-301-485

[59] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/special-branch-spied-on-union-leaders-norman-tebbit-admits-xv20rkmzw

[60]  https://www.unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2021/march/norman-tebbit-s-admission-about-government-involvement-in-spying-on-trade-unionists-must-be-fully-investigated

[61] https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/20231101_ruling_core_participants_48_RLR_40_costs_37.pdf

[62] Letter from UCPI to Imran Khan & Partners 17^th September 2025 (Annex B Pre-action protocol UCPI to Dave Smith)

Legal papers applying for a Judicial Review have been submitted against the chair of the undercover policing inquiry by blacklisted union activist Dave Smith.

The application, to be decided on by a High Court judge, is hoping to overturn the “unreasonable” and irrational” decision by Sir John Mitting not to allow Smith to give oral evidence at the public inquiry in November.

Smith is the secretary of the Blacklist Support Group, the justice campaign set up after the exposure of the construction industry blacklist, and co-author of the best selling book: Blacklisted: the secret war between big business and union activists. 

Years of campaigning by the Blacklist Support Group (BSG) led to Operation Reuben – the police investigation into blacklisting – concluding that allegations that Special Branch and the security services supplied information about union activists to multinational construction companies and to the blacklisting organisations; the Economic League and the Consulting Association were “proven”.

Investigating the role of the police in blacklisting is one of the stated aims of the spycops public inquiry.

Smith is one of a number of blacklisted union activists granted core participants in the spycops inquiry, after it was found that unions were infiltrated by undercover police who reported on activists from the 1960s to the 2010s.

After 10 years of the inquiry, the blacklisted workers are finally scheduled to give oral evidence in November and December this year. The chair of the inquiry has however made a decision not to call Dave Smith to give evidence.  

The Judicial Review application notes “not a single police witness has faced more than one or two perfunctory questions about their role(s) outside of the SDS, or of their knowledge of sharing intelligence with third parties.”

It adds “not a single word on blacklisting or vetting appeared in the 109 pages of the UCPI Interim Report. In the Claimant’s submission failing to address these matters leaves a significant gap in the Public Inquiry, hindering the full understanding of the truth and the Inquiry’s ability to examine the matter comprehensively”.

The application argues that:

“if the position remains as it is, namely that the Claimant will not be called, the Inquiry will have heard from state actors only in circumstances where there is challenge to that evidence… The refusal to call the Claimant will render that process unfair and, it is submitted, be in breach of the Claimant’s legitimate expectation that he would be able to challenge the evidence of police witnesses”…

“no other Core Participant in the Inquiry will have the knowledge or expertise to challenge the police narrative. Accordingly, without the Claimant giving oral evidence, findings by the Inquiry relating to blacklisting will be based primarily on evidence from the police witnesses”.

Dave Smith commented: “When we first spoke about police spying on unions and blacklisting, we were ridiculed as conspiracy theorists.

“Through our collective campaigning, it is now an acknowledged fact that blacklisting is a real life conspiracy; orchestrated by big business, the police and security services which has decimated lives and, on occasions, taken them.

“The spycops inquiry’s intention to restrict the evidence of blacklisted workers, while at the same time relying on police accounts, is against natural justice and the public interest. The irrational decision makes the inquiry look like an establishment cover-up.

“We refuse to meekly accept the decision and have had no choice but to legally challenge it. Our lawyers at Imran Khan and Partners have today issued judicial review proceedings in the High Court against Sir John Mitting, the Chair of the Inquiry to force him to change his mind.”

 

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNcgrNs6pB8

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

1. 

 

Campaigners are calling for the release of all police files relating to the spycops scandal, after recently disclosed Special Branch documents prove that undercover police reported on union members speaking at meetings to request solidarity.

One such file (400/84/165, excerpt reproduced above), until recently subject to a Restriction Order, was compiled by an undercover police spy who used the cover name Nicholas Green when attending a meeting of left-wing activists held in March 1986. The meeting was held at the Cock Tavern in Euston, which has been the venue for trade union and left wing campaigns for decades. The majority of the Special Branch file is a report of a speech given by Brian Higgins, a Scottish bricklayer and activist in UCATT (the building workers’ union).

Higgins was one of six construction workers who were sacked by the blacklisting building contractor, John Laing, in a dispute about direct employment. The victimised workers were collectively known as the Laing’s Lock Out Committee. Taking place at the same time as the miners’ strike, the industrial action gained a high profile at the time and saw a High Court Injunction being granted against all the pickets.

The police file records how Higgins spoke about developments in the dispute and made a request for solidarity from those present. Both the financial appeal leaflet and an 8 page rank & file paper called ‘Building Worker’ are included the police report. The first page of the file is stamped ‘BOX 500’, which indicates that the report was sent to MI5. The last page of the report shows the Special Branch file numbers for Brian Higgins himself, and for the construction union UCATT.

In an internal police report known as Operation Reuben, the police admit that intelligence gathered by undercover policing was shared by both Special Branch and the security services, with employers and the notorious blacklisting organisations; the Economic League and the Consulting Association.

Brian Higgins was one of many union activists spied on by undercover police and blacklisted by major construction employers. He passed away in 2019, so never got to see any of the documentary evidence of police spying. On viewing the police file reporting on their father, Monica and Noelle Higgins issued a joint statement:

“Our dad campaigned for better health and safety and workers’ rights all of his life. He always said Special Branch were involved in his blacklisting, and this is now proven beyond any doubt. It’s just a bit of a strange feeling to see it in print. Treated as enemies of the state, as if you were planning civil unrest or domestic terror attacks! It’s unbelievable, but shows how scared the state are of militant workers, and how far they are prepared to go. The police saw this as politics, but the impact on our family was very personal.”

The Blacklist Support Group (BSG), the campaign representing blacklisted union members, is a core participant in the public inquiry. The Special Branch file was disclosed to BSG but with Restriction Orders put in place meaning that until now the files were not allowed to be shared in the public domain. Dave Smith, BSG secretary (himself a core participant in the inquiry and an ex-UCATT Branch Secretary and) commented:

“The undercover cop known as Nicholas Green reported on UCATT member Brian Higgins: but it could have happened to absolutely any union activist asking for solidarity while on strike. Speaking at meetings during an industrial dispute is a perfectly legal union activity: it is not subversion. Despite police denials, the UK political police units were gathering intelligence on trade unionists prepared to stand up for workers’ rights. There is now conclusive evidence that Special Branch infiltrated trade union meetings and kept files on every trade union in the UK. To get to the truth of this anti-democratic state spying on trade unions, all the spycops files need to be disclosed to those who were spied on”.

 

 

 

Operation Reuben Unpicked – by Undercover Research Group:  https://specialbranchfiles.uk/operation-reuben-unpicked-pt1/

Special Branch file 400/84/165 on the Undercover Policing Inquiry website: https://www.ucpi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/UCPI0000026544.pdf

 

 

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNcgrNs6pB8

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

Reinstate Lee Fowler – electrician sacked after raising concerns about safety on site in Liverpool.

PROTEST
Thursday 20 April, 1:00pm
Cargill site
The Dock Road
Bootle
L20 8DF

SAFETY BEFORE PROFIT

Further information
Morning Star.  Socialist Party.

 

Unite is stepping up its search for information into the possible collusion by trade union officials into the blacklisting of construction workers.

In April 2022 Unite established an independent inquiry into allegations that some union officials may have colluded with the blacklisting of construction workers.

Workers were frequently denied work for raising safety concerns on site, with an illegal industry-financed blacklisting organisation, The Consulting Association, coordinating the list which included details on over 3,000 site workers.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Blacklisting is a disgusting practice which ruins workers’ lives. Unite has been and continues to be at the forefront of stamping out this practice once and for all.”

•  Independent Blacklisting Collusion Inquiry.

Blacklist Support Group statement

 

Solidarity with Lee Fowler, who has been dismissed by the electrical contractor Bilfinger after he raised safety issues at the Cargill’s Refinery site in Merseyside (next to the new Everton football stadium construction project). The experienced and highly qualified electrician made several complaints about unsafe working conditions and helped four co-workers to obtain a pay rise.

Lee Fowler commented after his dismissal: “I got the four lads a 14% pay rise and I raised health and safety concerns about the site. I was involved in a serious accident myself, and the subsequent report found no blame on my part whatsoever. I have repeatedly asked to see the safety documents relating to my accident, and that request has been repeatedly denied.  And for that I was dismissed? I have fought for workers’ health and safety for over 30 years: they won’t silence me!”

Lee Fowler is a member of Unite the Union who are representing him.

Frank Morris and Tony Seaman, UNITE Executive Council members for construction issued a joint statement:  “It is really disappointing that in 2023, we continue to see workers who are prepared to raise genuine concerns about safety being targeted. Despite all that was promised by major contractors in the High Court in 2016, this issue continues to blight our members lives.

“Blacklisting is one of the reasons that the construction sector has such a horrendous safety record. We cannot stand by and watch union members be repeatedly victimised. Unite will never stop fighting the harassment faced by workers who stand up for their rights. An injury to one is an injury to all”.

Blacklist Support Group posted on their Facebook page:

Lee Fowler is a leading member of the Blacklist Support Group – having first been blacklisted after becoming an OILC safety rep in the North Sea in the early 90s.

Construction workers who raise concerns about potential hazards that could affect people on site and the surrounding community should be applauded. The industry has glossy posters that encourage workers to speak out. But time and again, workers who are conscientious about safety get sacked. Get your banners ready, another blacklisting dispute is about to kick off.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
Claim No: QB-2021-000523

 QUEEN’S  BENCH  DIVISION

BETWEEN:

DANIEL GUY COLLINS

Claimant

And

(1) CROSSRAIL LIMITED

(2) COSTAIN GROUP PLC

(3) COSTAIN LIMITED

(4) COSTAIN CIVIL ENGINEERING LIMITED

(5) COSTAIN ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTION LIMITED (6) COSTAIN INTEGRATED SERVICES LIMITED

(7) SKANSKA UK PLC

(8) SKANSKA CONSTRUCTION UK LIMITED

(9) SKANSKA RASHLEIGH WEATHERFOIL LIMITED

(10)               SKANSKA MAJOR PROJECTS LIMITED

(11)               SKANSKA TECHNOLOGY LIMITED

(12)         T CLARKE PLC

(13)         T CLARKE CONTRACTING LIMITED

(14)               T CLARKE SERVICES LIMITED

(15)         NG BAILEY GROUP LIMITED

(16)               NG BAILEY LIMITED

Defendants

 

STATEMENT IN OPEN COURT FOR DANIEL COLLINS

Mr Collins is an electrician. During the period from 1998 until 2014 Mr Collins worked in the construction industry on various construction projects including projects at Heathrow Airport, St Pancras Station, Farringdon station and Tottenham Court Road station. During this time, Mr Collins had no significant difficulty in finding work on construction projects and any gaps between periods of employment were relatively short.

For simplicity, in this statement, Mr Collins has referred to the 2nd to 16th Defendants by the name of the group of companies to which these Defendants belong, i.e.

‘Costain’, ‘Skanska’ ‘T Clarke’ and ‘NG Bailey’.

From 2011 onwards, Mr Collins’ experiences, of the way in which construction workers are treated by construction companies, led him to gradually becoming more active in his union, Unite. In particular, he was concerned about the importance of construction sites being safe places to work.

Mr Collins also campaigned against ‘bogus self-employment’ in the construction industry, i.e. employment agencies insisting on construction workers working on a self- employed basis. He campaigned for construction companies to comply with construction industry rules which require construction companies to ‘make every effort to offer any vacancy on a directly-employed basis’ instead of using employment agencies. Mr Collins knows that workers who are self-employed have no employment rights and that agency workers have very few employment rights and no job security. One such campaign led to NG Bailey agreeing to directly employ Mr Collins, and a group of other agency workers, at Tottenham Court Road station in September 2014. NG Bailey made Mr Collins redundant 3 months later.

In February 2015, whilst working on the Crossrail project at Bond Street station, Mr Collins raised a safety concern about workers using what he considered an unsafe makeshift narrow walkway with no handrails, while carrying heavy bags of concrete and other equipment.. However, Mr Collins did not consider his concerns were addressed and, 3 days later, he was dismissed, despite having previously been assured that there was 3 years’ worth of work available on the project.

After Mr Collins was dismissed, he and other activists demonstrated outside the site, to draw public attention to the fact that he believed that he had been dismissed for raising a health and safety concern. The main contractor at Bond Street station was the Costain Skanska Joint Venture.

From February 2015 onwards, Mr Collins found it increasingly difficult to find work in the construction industry, particularly on the Crossrail project. Mr Collins did everything he could to find work. He would find out, from other electricians he knew, which construction sites were recruiting electricians and who the contractor was. He would apply to contractors direct. He would also try to find out which employment agencies the contractor was using and apply to the employment agencies. He followed the employment agencies on ‘LinkedIn’ and used social media to find out when they were recruiting electricians. He regularly rang employment agencies and emailed them his CV. However, despite Mr Collins’ best efforts, he was never again able to get work on the Crossrail project.

On more than one occasion, Mr Collins’ approach to an employment agency resulted in him being offered work on the Crossrail project and then told, at the last minute, that he was not required. For example, in March 2016, Mr Collins was told, by an employment agency called CSS, that he would be starting work at the Paddington Crossrail site on 21 March 2016. The main contractor at Paddington was the Costain Skanska Joint Venture and T Clarke were a subcontractor. On 18 March 2016, Mr Collins got a call from the employment agency informing him that the order for labour had been cancelled due to all vacancies having been filled internally.

Another example is that, in June 2016, Mr Collins was told by an employment agency that there was work available on the Crossrail Old Oak Common project. The electrical contractor on this project was NG Bailey. On 9 June 2016, the employment agency emailed Mr Collins induction forms and directions to the Old Oak Common site. Mr Collins completed the induction forms and returned them that evening. On 13 June 2016, the employment agency phoned Mr Collins and said that the work was no longer available, due to all vacancies having been filled internally by the client. It is employed staff became available to work on the project.

Mr Collins found the process of constantly making applications for work, but not getting anywhere, draining. He suspected that the reason he was unable to get work was because he is a trade union activist. He tried not to think about this and just carried on applying for work but he formed the view that the construction companies did not want to take him on. It was hard for Mr Collins, knowing that he had worked hard to become very skilled at what he does, and feeling that he was being discriminated against for standing up for his principles, as a trade unionist.

Mr Collins’ difficulties in finding work made it difficult for him to meet his financial commitments. There were times when he was not able to pay his household bills and he had to rely on his partner to pay them. Mr Collins built up credit card debts. At times, he had to rely on financial support from his parents and from trade union activist groups, including the Blacklist Support Group.

Mr Collins considers that he has always been good at his job and it was difficult for his family and friends to understand why he was struggling to find work. Mr Collins has always had a very strong work ethic but he sometimes worried that people who did not know him well would think that he was lazy.

In 2016 Mr Collins made the difficult decision to leave the construction industry because of the difficulties he had experienced, in finding work in the sector. Since 2016, Mr Collins has worked as Maintenance Electrician in the civil air transport sector. Mr Collins is still an active trade unionist but his experience of being a trade unionist in the civil air transport sector has been much more positive. Unlike when he worked in the construction industry, Mr Collins does not consider that his trade union activities have threatened his ability to earn a living.

In 2016, Mr  Collins began  submitting  Subject  Access Requests to construction companies. He wanted to know why, despite making numerous applications for work, he had been unable to get work.

The responses to the Subject Access Requests are redacted. It is the Defendants’ position that these redactions are necessary to comply with data protection legislation. The responses include information which, Mr Collins firmly believes, shows that construction companies and employment agencies misused his private information, for the purpose of preventing him from getting work on the Crossrail project, because of his trade union activities.

For example, the response to the Subject Access Request which Mr Collins submitted to Costain included an internal email dated 13 February 2015 which said ‘His name is Daniel Collins 33 years old has worked for NG Bailey’s not sure how long but was in London and finished last two weeks so see what you can find out cheers’. Another email, sent the following day, said ‘We have a potential issue. Danny Collins is part of the Unite activist group. I will call.’

Another example is that the responses to the Subject Access Requests made to Costain, Skanska and T Clarke included private information about a grievance which Mr Collins had submitted, to an employment agency called Premier People Recruitment, in 2015 when he was working at Heathrow Airport. This dispute had nothing to do with Costain, Skanska or T Clark. Mr Collins believes that there was no legitimate reason for these companies to hold this information. In addition, the Labour Manager at T Clarke forwarded the email correspondence, concerning Mr Collins’ grievance against PPR, to the Group Chief Executive and the Group Managing Director on 18 November 2015 commenting: ‘Read and Delete!!! I hope we never end up with this bloke on any of our sites! [REDACTED] For your information PPR are a Technical recruitment agency working out at Heathrow supplying labour for the Tunnel work which is what this is all about.’

Another example is that the responses to the Subject Access Request which Mr Collins made to Costain and T Clarke included an email dated 19 March 2016 at 1.54 pm which said ‘Investigation so far Collins rang CSS two weeks ago & requested a job specifically for Paddington [REDACTED] Significance of above someone is feeding R&F information from the Paddington location, about when recruitment is taking place, & then to chase for employment at that time. Almost certainly [REDACTED] in my view. It is only thanks to the strict vetting instituted by TC before any electrician commences, after there Romford fight that we are not faced with an issue on Monday. Bond st. CSS are on a potential supplier list for LMOB our preferd electrical contractor, albeit not in contract yet. Action. Will be at Bond St Wednesday & will raise with the team the above event & the importance that LMOB must mirror what TC are doing when there supply chain recruits… [REDACTED] is aware of all of the above, & is totally engaged & supportive on process to ensure CSJV runs trouble free. [REDACTED] in finality the R & F will keep trying, but if we & our supply chain carry out the proper process, we will be ok’.

An earlier email in the same chain, sent on 19 March 2016 at 9.15 am, said ‘Close. But well batted & defended by [REDACTED] Trust England defend as well in Paris tonight.’

Mr Collins believes that these emails show that T Clarke (TC) were vetting electricians to screen out union activists. Mr Collins believes that LMOB is a reference to another electrical contractor (LMOB Electrical Contractors Limited) and R & F is a reference to Rank and File, a trade union activist group which Mr Collins is a member of.

Mr Collins considers that he has always been a reasonable and moderate person and that he has never set out to cause any problems at work. He simply believes that people have a right to have a safe place of work and to have a voice at work. He wants to work with employers, to improve working conditions for the benefit of workers and employers, and his intentions have always been genuine.

The Defendants’ actions caused Mr Collins a great deal of upset and distress and, he believes, brought his career in the construction industry to an end. Mr Collins feels strongly that the way in which he has been treated by the Defendants is disgraceful and very unfair.

Mr Collins’ solicitors sent letters before claim to the Defendants, requesting disclosure of unredacted documents, on 14 July 2020.

The Defendants refused to provide unredacted documents on the basis of their obligations under the data protection legislation but did provide some limited further documents which were not in the initial responses to Mr Collins’ Subject Access Requests.

For example, the further disclosure from T Clarke included an email dated 21 April 2015 saying ‘Frank asked me to forward this onto you; careful it is private and confidential. Before you start to read it’s 12 pages of an outcome of a recent appeal hearing concerning one Danny Collins (Crossrail engaged agency worker Electrician that was removed from the project). T Clarke was not Mr Collins’ employer at Bond Street. Mr Collins believes that there was no legitimate reason for T Clarke to have this document.

Another example is that on 21 March 2016, the T Clarke’s Labour Manager sent an email to different employment agency (i.e. not the agency which had offered Mr Collins work at Paddington) saying, ‘I have the R&F after me again messers [sic] … and Collins. CSS offered them a start on Crossrail for us and I cancelled the order.’

Mr Collins issued court proceedings against the Defendants in February 2021 for blacklisting, breaches of data protection and misuse of private information. The Defendants all filed defences, denying that they had acted unlawfully and denying that they had blacklisted the Claimant, breached data protection legislation, or misused his private information, for the purpose of preventing him from getting work on the Crossrail project, because of his trade union activities.

The Defendants made a Part 36 offer to settle Mr Collins’ claim in December 2021, the Defendants’ position is that they did so for purely commercial reasons and without admission of liability or wrongdoing. Mr Collins has accepted this offer. As part of the settlement, the Defendants have paid damages to Mr Collins and have agreed to pay Mr Collins’ reasonable legal costs. Mr Collins accepted the Defendants’ offer in the knowledge that, if he were to reject the offer and go on to either lose or prove his case at trial but be awarded a lower sum in damages, then he could be liable for very substantial legal costs.

Defendants’ position that they do not accept liability. However, Mr Collins’ belief is that the settlement was tantamount to an acceptance of liability on the part of the Defendants and he, therefore, feels fully vindicated in having brought this claim.

As a union activist, Mr Collins is aware of the fact that, in 2009, the Information Commissioner raided the offices of an organisation called the Consulting Association and seized a list of the names of thousands of construction workers, which had been used by construction companies to vet workers who applied for work. As a member of the Blacklist Support Group, Mr Collins knows that a significant number of the workers on the Consulting Association list were union activists, and that many of them have experienced long periods of unemployment and financial hardship. He is also aware that the Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Defendants were also Defendants in the subsequent High Court claims for compensation, which were brought by hundreds of construction workers, and that, in 2016, the Second, Third, Seventh, Eighth and Ninth Defendants made a Statement in Open Court apologising for their actions which, they accepted, had unlawfully caused damage and distress to the construction workers affected. Mr Collins is dismayed that, despite their previous apologies, the Defendants appear to him to have continued to operate a secretive system of misuse of private information about union activists seemingly for the purposes of preventing them from obtaining employment.

Nevertheless, Mr Collins hopes that, despite the Defendants’ denials of liability, the fact that he brought this claim will have caused the Defendants to reflect on their treatment of him and of other union activists. He hopes that the Defendants will now be prepared to move away from what he believes to be a culture of hostility towards trade union activists in the construction sector and engage with trade unions, in a genuine and constructive way, with the aim of rebuilding trust and improving industrial relations in the construction sector.

Finally, Mr Collins would like to express his thanks to his trade union, Unite, without whose support he would not have been able to bring this legal claim. Mr Collins is confident that Unite will continue to support union activists in exposing blacklisting construction companies to account for their actions.

A copy of this statement has been shared with the Defendants to Mr Collins’ claim.

The Defendants maintain their firm denial of liability in respect of the claim and do not agree with Mr Collins’ perception of events referred to in this statement. However, they recognise that Mr Collins is permitted to have this statement read in open Court.

Unite news release. 21 March 2023.

A landmark case involving allegations of contemporary “blacklisting” on the flagship Crossrail project has concluded following a statement in open court yesterday (Monday 20 March).

Skilled electrician

Unite member Daniel Collins, an electrician, took a case for blacklisting, breaches of data protection and misuse of private information against construction companies Crossrail, Costain, Skanska, T Clarke and NG Bailey.

Mr Collins had the full support of Unite who instructed employment solicitors Thompsons to act on his behalf.

Significant case

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This was a hugely significant case and demonstrates how Unite will back its members to the hilt.

“Unite is totally focused on defending the jobs, pay and conditions of its members and it will use all avenues available to defend their interests.”

Safety concerns

In February 2015, while working for the Costain/Skanska joint venture at Bond Street, Mr Collins raised serious safety concerns. He was dismissed from the project three days later.

After that date, and even though he was continually applying for work across the Crossrail project, Mr Collins was not able to secure a position. On a number of occasions, he was offered roles which were later withdrawn.

As a result of being unable to secure work, Mr Collins was forced to leave the construction sector and had to seek employment elsewhere.

Personal information

Mr Collins then made a series of subject access requests that revealed how personal information about him had been widely circulated. This included an internal email from Costain that said: “We have a potential issue. Danny Collins is part of the Unite activist group”.

He also discovered that Costain, Skanska and T Clarke held private information on him concerning a grievance he had submitted to an employment agency Premier People Recruitment (PPR), concerning an unrelated matter when he was working at Heathrow Airport. Mr Collins believes the details of the grievance had nothing to do with Costain, Skanska and T Clarke and there was no legitimate reason for them to have the information.

Damages paid

In addition, the Labour Manager at T Clarke had forwarded the email correspondence about the grievance to his company’s group chief executive and group managing director and said: “Read and delete!!! I hope we never end up with this bloke on any of our sites.”

Although the companies involved denied liability, they agreed to pay damages to Mr Collins and have agreed to pay Mr Collins’ legal costs “for purely commercial reasons and without admission of liability or wrongdoing”.

Rachel Halliday, the solicitor from Thompsons who acted for Mr Collins during the case, said: “We were proud to represent Mr Collins and to secure him a settlement of his claim.”

Ongoing concerns

The involvement of Costain and Skanska in the case is significant. The two companies, alongside Strabag, have formed a joint venture company and are undertaking work on HS2 at Euston Station and in London. Unlike other joint venture companies working on HS2, the Skanska Costain Strabag joint venture has refused to agree an access agreement with Unite and won’t allow officials access to its welfare facilities to speak to workers, even though this is required by the client HS2.

 

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The full statement in open court

Crossrail ‘blacklisting’ case to conclude with open court statement

For media enquiries ONLY please contact Unite senior communications officer Barckley Sumner on 07802 329235 or 0203 371 2067.

Email: barckley.sumner@unitetheunion.org

• Victimisation dispute at Murphy’s, Limerick, Ireland
• Central London protest, 14 March
  

Construction giant Murphy’s has sacked four Unite members, including the long standing steward, for attending a union meeting in a site canteen in Limerick. Originally 14 workers were suspended but only those most associated with the union were dismissed.

This is blatant union victimisation. Unite has submitted an unfair dismissal claim, but are also campaigning to get the four union members reinstated.

For more information follow https://twitter.com/themurphy4_ on Twitter. Background information.

REINSTATE THE MURPHY 4!

Action! Murphy’s are up for a Pipeline Guild award in the West End of London. Lenny Henry is giving out the awards. Seems like a great opportunity for some rank & file action:

Time
Tuesday 14th March (assemble from 5pm)
Venue
Pipeline Industries Guild Awards
Grosvenor House Hotel
Park Lane
London
W1K 7TN

Spread the word – bring your mates, banners & dancing shoes.

 

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNcgrNs6pB8

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog

Blacklist Support Group update and statement

The public inquiry into undercover policing held hearings this week at the end of Tranche 1, and involved a number of lawyers making closing statements based on the evidence so far.

The most important statement was from the Counsel to the Inquiry – which was effectively a summary of what Sir John Mitting (the judge overseeing the inquiry) is thinking right now. It is damning of the police.

The non-state non-police Core Participants statement is also significant.  Blacklist Support Group are core participants in the public inquiry, so this is our collective response. There is an index at the start.

Blacklist Support Group statement:

” A few years ago, we were slated as conspiracy theorists for suggesting that undercover police infiltrated trade unions and blacklisted activists. This week, the spycops public inquiry has acknowledged that it did happen. It is a massive admission by the state, brought about by our collective struggle. Massive ‘thank you’ to everyone who has stood with us. Solidarity with our sister campaigners.

“Blacklist Support Group (BSG) are core-participants in the public inquiry. Blacklisted workers recognise the importance of the statement made by the counsel to the inquiry. In many ways Barr’s closing statement provides vindication for our fight. We have only got to this point because by the work of activists, investigative journalists, lawyers, unions and a small number of politicians, in waging campaign to uncover the truth about the nature of political policing in the UK. It is no thanks to the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office or the multiple arms of the state apparatus who have sought at every opportunity to cover up their wrong doing and delay the process.

“BSG applaud our fellow non-state non-police core participants, our legal teams and sister campaigns: Police Spies Out of Lives, Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, The Monitoring Group, Undercover Research Group, Unite the Union, FBU and NUM who have stood shoulder to shoulder for over a decade in this fight for justice.

“Counsel to the Inquiry’s closing statement admits that the SDS political policing was unjustified and that undercover police officers joined trade unions to spy on internal union meetings: ‘trade unions and trade unionists are both mentioned in SDS reporting. Specific justice campaigns often feature in SDS reporting… for example the reporting on the Shrewsbury Two Action Committee’.

“Yet counsel to the inquiry also claims that trade unions were not ‘specific SDS targets or that individual trade unionists were reported upon solely because of their trade union activities’. This is a legalistic tautology. Information about what trade unionists said at union meetings was gathered by undercover police officers claiming to be union members. This intelligence was sent back to Special Branch. This is spying on trade union activities: plain and simple.

“Counsel to the inquiry also accepts that intelligence was shared with employers to blacklist British citizens because of their perfectly lawful political and trade union activities. This is state sponsored blacklisting: plain and simple”.

Keep the faith.

Related resources
All the closing statements made this week.
Video of 22 February 2023 closing statements.

Press reportage (not a single word on BBC, ITV, C4, Sky News or radio).

Tribune.
Evening Standard.
The Guardian and related article.
The Independent.
Open Democracy.
Morning Star and related article.
Irish News.
Spies at work.
The Canary.

Blacklist Support Group

book: http://newint.org/books/politics/blacklisted-secret-war/

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNcgrNs6pB8

facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/blacklistSG/

blog: www.hazards.org/blacklistblog