In light of new evidence presented as part of the ongoing inquiry into the conduct of undercover policing units in the United Kingdom, the investigation has established that undercover officers infiltrating left-wing political movements and protest groups routinely funneled the intelligence they gathered to the MI5 counterspy agency.
Police officers conducting long-term undercover deployments engaged in deception against political campaigners, family advocacy groups, pro-democracy coalitions, and anti-nuclear movements. The probe into the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) has discovered that MI5 still holds the operational records these officers produced.
The inquiry has found that MI5 collected and continues to hold information – including photographs – on children fathered by undercover police officers with female activists involved in political campaigns, as well as details of bank accounts and private home addresses. Investigators are now focusing intently on the nexus between the SDS and the wider security establishment. Documents indicate a tangible link between the Special Demonstration Squad and the Economic League, a notorious anti-union group that maintained blacklists used to bar thousands of construction workers from employment for their trade union ties. In a striking revelation during his testimony, former undercover officer Peter Francis described a meeting between an SDS officer and a powerful construction industry figure, whom he identified as Lord McAlpine, the former Tory Party Treasurer during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership.