Thread by @copscampaign

Day 5 of the #SpyCopsInquiry will continue with a statement from Lord Hendy QC, speaking for the Fire Brigades Union
@fbunational & Unite the Union @UnitePolitics, which we'll live tweet in this thread.

Hendy: As well as the FBU & Unite, the CWU, GMD, NEU, NUJ, RMT & PCS may have been targeted by #Spycops

Hendy: My clients don't believe they will see justification for being targeted by #spycops. Why was intel gathered? They think it was used for unlawful #blacklisting

Hendy: Trade unions had to fight to become lawful. they've been around for 300 years to improve conditions of workers. Bargaining leverage comes from the possibility of industrial action.

Hendy: Unions promote legislation & support political parties that are in their interests. Unions were illegal under Combination Acts until 1824, but reamined illegal on other grounds (eg Tolpuddle Martyrs). Made legal in 1834 as long as they didn't exercise 'restraint of trade'.

Hendy: Collective bargaining used to be illegal as restraint of trade. During 19th century it became lawful & accepted. By the end of WW1 it became the policy of all governments up until 1980

Hendy: The threat of a strikes and pickets used to be unlawful conspiracy until 1885. Not until the Trade Disputes Act 1906 were unions truly free to threaten or take industrial action.

Hendy: The right to strike is well established in law, specifically written in international instruments inc Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Hendy: Political work by unions was originally about workplace issues, then expanded to funding Liberal MPs, then their founding of the Labour Party.

Hendy: There can be no legitimate infiltrating of trade unions acting in their usual functions. Regulation is a civil issue, not criminal, so nothing to do with police. Unions should not have been targeted by #spycops.

Hendy: If some trade unionists act criminally, that's a specific individual issue, it doesn't in any way justify infiltration of unions by #spycops.

Hendy: The right to strike & picket is protected by a raft of international treaties to which the UK is a signatory. It is part of civic life. Union activity cannot be treated as a threat.

Hendy is listing many of the international laws made in the last hundred years that protect union activity including the right to strike. Picketing is legal even if it obstructs the highway.

Hendy: It's clear trade unions are lawful & respectable, pursuing activities recognised & protected in law, in contrast to their previous criminal status in a bygone age.

Hendy: Unions act as a balance to the power of multinational corporations. Covid protections by unions shows the need for them today. Their function of harnessing the collective power of labour to press for improvement of conditions is legitimate

Hendy: It's only now, 5 year in, the #SpyCopsInquiry is starting. Worse is the paucity of documents, delivered late. 2 documents . Yet we know there has been long term #spycops focus on unions. Special Branch had an Industrial Unit from 1970.

Hendy: We don;t know if Special Branch used #spycops themselves ,but they definitely used intel from them. Jack Winder, from blacklisters the Economic League, used to meet a Detective Sergeant

Hendy: Special Branch Industrial Intelligence Unit was plainly spying on unions. Operation Fairway is its modern equivalent. It falls under the 'domestic extremism' remit of the Met, despite being lawful.

Hendy: #spycops officer @realspycop says he spied on CWU, FBU, NUT (now NEU) & Unison. Officer Mark Jenner joined UCATT. Also, @helensteel, @Donna__McLean & Alison were all union reps when spycops were deceiving them into relationships.

Hendy: 44 construction companies helped run #blacklisting of workers by the Consulting Association. More than 3000 people had files. It was exposed by an Information Commissioners Office raid in 2009. Some info on files can only have come from police.

Hendy: The Consulting Association wanted to prevent active trade unionists gaining employment. In one instance, someone sought work making educational videos. As they also did work for construction firms, they contacted the Consulting Association.

Hendy: Special Branch Industrial Intelligence officer checked with blacklisters who said there was a possible link with terrorism. They were refused employment. We only know because they were related to a retired police superintendent who took it up and had it corrected.

Hendy: That private blacklisters could so readily get police to check their files & get them to share secret defamatory (false) info is astonishing. How many people did it happen to who don't have a senior police relative to put it right?

Hendy: The fact that it was ostensibly private blacklisters at work shouldn't distract from the key involvement of police, and makes such private firms a rightful part of the investigations of the #SpyCopsInquiry

Hendy: We want to know more about the Special Branch Industrial Unit. Blacklisting isn't historic. Senior #spycops officer Gordon Mills met the Consulting Association just before the construction of the London Olympic Park in 2008 at which #blacklisting was rife.

Hendy: The manager of the Consulting Association pleaded guilty to Data Protection offences. Civil claims were brought for conspiracy against construction firms involved Balfour Beatty, Costain, Skanska, Laing O'Rourke & others were compelled to apologise & settle with workers

Hendy: Having any Consulting Association #blacklisting file prevented employment, irrespective of the content of the info or its veracity, and lives were ruined.

Hendy: My clients, the FBU & Unite, haven't been able to pay for continuous representation at the #SpyCopsInquiry, they are reliant on the Inquiry to alert them to anything relevant to see.

Hendy: A 1973 Special Branch report by #spycops officer John Clinton records the names & addresses of attendants at a conference, naming their union membership or allegiance. The unions have their own code numbers for the report; spycops were targeting unions.

Hendy: Specifically, the prefix 400 in the 1973 secret rport by officer John Clinton seems to refer to trade unions in the #spycops filing system. It must have been an established part of the intelligence gathering.

Here's the @UndercoverNet page on #Spycops officer John Clinton
powerbase.info/index.php/John…

Hendy: The 1973 #spycops report also refers to the @Shrewsbury24C, members of various unions who were fitted up for Conspiracy to Intimidate by police during the 1972 Building Workers Strike, for which several were jailed

The Shrewsbury 24 convictions are under review & may well be quashed. Here's Ricky Tomlinson talking abut the Shrewsbury 24 at a COPS public meeting

Hendy: The #SpyCopsInquiry says it is not here to investigate Special Branch, only the #spycops. Yet is purpose is to report on all undercover policing; it will include but not be limited to what extent spycops have targeted political groups;

Hendy: Inquiry remit specifies undercover is not merely the SDS unit. The unit's annual reports we've seen from 1968-74 show the main targets were left wing groups. There's no reference to unions despite trade disputes being the backdrop of the groups being spied upon.

Hendy: The 1974 SDS annual report says the Shrewsbury 2 Defence Committee had been penetrated. It will have been trade unionists, successor to the @Shrewsbury24C Defence Committee. What justification was there for spying on this campaign at all? Where was the risk of crime?

Hendy: The #spycops infiltration was to monitor whether the Shrewsbury campaign was having any success in proving police had fitted up those who were convicted.

The spycops held files on 7 named unions; we can assume these weren't the only ones

Hendy: In 2015 SDS #spycops officer Peter Francis @realspycop unreservedly apologised to the union members he spied on

theguardian.com/uk-news/underc…

Hendy: The #SpyCopsInquiry says there's no evidence of spying on unions in the early years it will examine in these first hearings 1968-72. Police lawyers denials of SDS spying doesn't mention Special Branch Intelligence Unit's spying; its very existence shows spying happened

Hendy: The #CHISBill before parliament will allow police to authorise #spycops to commit any crime. The #spycopsinquiry is being pre-empted, the government is not waiting for its recommendations

Hendy: The CHIS Bill allows #spycops to commit crime to protect 'the economic wellbeing of the UK', which can easily be made to apply to legitimate trade union activity. It means an officer refusing to commit a crime will be disobeying a lawful order & have disciplinary charges

14 trade unions, 20 Labour MPs and a number of campaigning organisations including the Campaign Opposing Police Surveillance, have signed a joint statement on the #CHISBill
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2020/10/14/chi…

Hendy: Finally, we must have all the names used by #spycops if the people who were spied on are to recognise them and be able to come forward and testify. Without the cover names of #spycops being published, the Inquiry cannot fulfil its remit.

With that, Hendy concludes. The #SpyCopsInquiry will now break until 3.45pm when it will hear from legendary human & civil rights lawyer Gareth Pierce, speaking for the National Union of Mineworkers. We'll live tweet it on a separate thread.