Thread by @copscampaign

Finally today at the #SpyCopsInquiry, it's a statement from Pete Weatherby QC, speaking for Newham Monitoring Project & other activists targeted by #spycops

Weatherby: I represent 18 different core participants at the #SpyCopsInquiry

[sorry, intermittent internet means live tweeting is difficult]

Inquiry is now being shown a film about the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, from the 2000s, including #spycops officer Lynn Watson as a clown

The film shows clowns outside US spybase Menwith Will in Yorkshire, doing a chirus line singing 'we love police'

Weatherby: How on earth was that legitimate policing?

Weatherby is now showing a picture of #spycops officer Simon Wellings in a cardboard tank he'd made for a similar demonstration.

Weatherby: This is what millions of pounds that could have been spent on communities or schools was wasted on

Weatherby: Silly though these images are, there's nothing funny here. It's an affront to democracy itself. We won't get the answers of these later #spycops for years to come.

Weatherby: Simon Wellings & Lynn Watson get their privacy protected by the #spyCopsInquirry while the people he spied on get no information and more delays
powerbase.info/index.php/Simo…

Weatherby: Some of the people I represent know fdetails, only because they did the exposure themselves. The lack of transparency & huge delay in the #SpyCopsiinquiry has sapped the trust of victims, compounded by exclsuion due to the lack of livestreaming after today

Weatherby: Did the writers of the Inquiries Act ever envision that an Inquiry would be made as blind as this? Of course not. It's the very reverse of how a healthy public inquiry should be. The state participants should be compelled to show their hand, but they don't

Weatherby: Secrecy creates distrust, and it also promotes failure. without the full participation of victims of #spycops, the Inquiry will fail. It seems to think the police reports & notes are reliable.

Weatherby: a public inquiry should not show deference to a state narrative. In 2019 we asked you to get the state participants to set out their positions, to admit what they're prepared to, maybe even apologise. The Chair rejected that request.

Weatherby: Public authorities should act in the public interest. Chairs of other inquiries inc Manchester Arena & Grenfell have called on public participants to set out their position - a narrative, a self assessment, and what they've learned. This Inquiry is in stark contrast

Weatherby: By leaving the facts to the end, it only serves to defend the Met. The Met should have admitted what it's done. The Inquiry can compel the Net and state authorities to comply.

Weatherby: The Inquiry could make the Met set out a chronology of #spycops, who, when, who authorised, and whether the Met still thinks them justified. Instead, the Chair takes the Met at their word that they don't deploy political #spycops.

Weatherby: The Met didn't even confirm that impression the Chair had

Weatherby: How is the Met 'helping the inquiry in every way' if it won't set out a timeline of what it's done? It's the swaggering arrogance of an institution that cannot see beyond its own interests, putting reputation over the duty to act in the public interest

Weatherby: Candour is the oxygen of justice. Faced with the Met's stonewalling, the Inquiry can back off & fail its remit, or step up & make them provide position statements. The public is entitled to them. The delay is unconscionable

Weatherby: Which #spycops will the Met defend? Which will it admit were wrong? If it did that it would gain the valuable respect of other participants.

In 5 years, the Met has surely looked into relationships between #spycops & women they spied on. Why won't they shine a light on what they found?

Weatherby: If the Met says it expects the Inquiry to find some deployments weren't justified, it must have already reached that conclusion itself. Let them say which ones they are, and which they justify.

Weatherby: Any pretence that political policing started in 1968 is wrong. 'political policing' is something people struggle to admit here, believing the police are somehow neutral.

Weatherby: The state wants to pretend that, but for a few exceptions, #spycops were basically justified. It sounds like repressive regimes around the world who all claim to respect human rights.

Weatherby: Last week we learned the likes of Croydon Libertarians & the women's Liberation Movement were spied on by #spycops in the early 70s, but it's part of a pattern that long predates the SDS.

Weatherby: Whatever excuses the Met give for #spycops, it would probably apply to their earlier spying on the suffragettes, anti-slavery and the Chartists. Dissenters are the drivers of progressive social change.

Weatherby: Protest has always involved friction with the state. The suffragettes were on the right side of history, and so are those who oppose racism, fox hunting & illegal wars today.

Weatherby: The institutional racism of the Met that @MonitoringGroup did so much to bring to consciousness is now widely recognised - though, as this Inquiry proves, it's still present.

Weatherby: Civil rights don't exist to protect those who comfortably comply with the status quo. Protests are often inconvenient, that's how they work

Weatherby: Citizens don't need the permission of the police in order to lawfully protest.

Weatherby: It's not for any limb of the state to insert itself into social justice activism, or insert itself into the minutiae of peoples lives because they campaign for a better society.

Weatherby: What 'restraint'have the police shown in its mass invasion & mass information gathering on huge numbers of people ?

Weatherby: I represent the Newham monitoring Project, established by Black activists & white anti-racists in 1980 & ran for 3 decades. Reported & campaigned on police racism, taking up cases from the community.

Weatherby: NMP rejected the way ethnicity was used to marginalise its communities. It saw a common political enemy. Racism & racist violence radicalises and politicises

Weatherby: NMP got council funded, had paid workers & more volunteers. Its work centred on racist violence, & criminalisation of those who organised to protect communities. Did that make them targets for #spycops? The police won't say

Weatherby: Did the fact that NMP challenged police narratives & reputation make them #spycops targets? Just showing the police for being racist to the degree that was provable.

Weatherby: NMP sent a copy of every report to the Newham Commander. If the police have done their disclosure properly, they'll have already sent them to the Inquiry.

Weatherby: What would proper disclosure show? Did #spycops use NMP to get into other justice campaigns they worked with who were also spied on?
campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2018/02/14/whi…

Weatherby: Police disliked, even hated, NMP for exposing 'community policing' as a lie, at odds with the facts of policing racialised communities. Police violence was routine. NMP no longer exists, but #BlackLivesMatter shows the issues are as live today as ever

Weatherby: The @HuntSabs has campaigned since 1963, mainly by disrupting hunts. It was vindicated by the Hunting Act 2004 though continues due to flouting of the law & other animal welfare issues. Why was it targeted by #spycops? Because hunting was such an establishment pastime?

Weatherby: Hunt sabs have suffered serious harassments with little police action & seemingly no #spycops infiltrating hunts. The SDS Tradecraft Manual itself complains of the way uniformed officers treat sabs ucpi.org.uk/publications/s…

Weatheby: #spycops admit spying 1983-2002, but it seems likely to have been happening both before and after that period.

Weatherby: Hunt sabs were lawful, or at worst within the arena of civil disobedience, so why were they targeted? An easy gateway to other groups? How is that justifiable?

Weatherby: #spycops in hunt sabs saw the violence meted out by hunt supporters and let it happen. Did they encourage illegal activity as agents provocateur? Did they supply personal details for #blacklisting?

Weatherby: Police were blatantly political when they targeted hunt sabs.

Weatherby: I also represent @emilyapple who helped set up @netpol & FITwatch, protecting the right to protest. This led to her being personally spied on. She has been arrested many times, typically without basis.

Weatherby: Apple was targeted for @DisarmDsei & environmental activists - 7 known #spycops were actively involved with things that she did.

Weatherby: Police breached legal professional privilege, with her being arrested & charged alongside #spycops. She was arrested with 'Rob Harrison' powerbase.info/index.php/HN18

Weatherby: Apple was also arrested a-=on the way to the G8 protest in Scotland in 2005 with #spycops officer 'Dave Evans'. She was spied on in her antimilitarist campaigning with @CAATuk by Martin Hogbin, a spy sent by BAE systems

Weatherby: Nicola Benge was part of Rhythms of Resistance Samba band that played on a number of activist groups in the 2000s. It was infiltrated but we're unsure when or by whom - the Inquiry won't tell them yet

Weatherby: Globalise Resistance tried to bridge the trade union movement and other activists. #spycops officer Simon Wellings infiltrated it & befriended Guy Taylor.

Weatherby: Wellings travelled to the US, Spain & France whilst a #spycops officer, making a mockery of the #SpyCopsInquiry's remit being limited to events in England & Wales powerbase.info/index.php/Simo…

Weatherby: Activist 'NRO' wants to know why he was targeted by #spycops. In the 2000s he was in a broadly anticapitalist group called WOMBLES who were distinctive in their padded white overalls & helmets that protected them from police violence.

Weatherby: NRO wants to know if his Indymedia & Aktivix activity made him a hub that they wanted to spy on. He was spied on by Jackie Anderson & Rod Richardson
powerbase.info/index.php/Rod_…

Weatherby: Indymedia had its servers repeatedly seized by police. It's established that #spycops posted news on the website. It's vital that the Inquiry investigates online infiltration & spying

Weatherby: Indra Donfrancesco and her daughters Megan & Morgana were involved in Earth First 1997-2010. #spycops officer Mark Kennedy befriended them from 2003-his exposure in 2010. In 2009 Kennedy & Indra shared a 40th birthday party.

Weatherby: In 2007 Mark Kenned volunteered to be photographer at Indra's wedding - presumably getting evidence for state files. The impact of the truth has affected Indra and her children who had a significant relationship with them

Weatherby: CIRCA, the Clown Army, was a group of educators in the field of political theatre. It was part funded by the Arts Council. it was infiltrated by #spycops officer Lynn Watson as seen in this video

Weatherby: The international Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian solidarity group that sends people with the privilege of a foreign passport to escort & protect persecuted civilians. This is obviously outside England & Wales - but here it would just be leafleting & stalls

Weatherby: there is no suggestion of anything in England & Wales that would justify #spycops. @AsaWinstanley was involved in ISM & is deeply traumatised by the fact that ISM's Rob Harrison was a #spycops officer.

Weatherby: #spycops officer Rob Harrison deceived an ISM activist's young neighbour into a sexual relationship

electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-wins…

Weatherby: VSP was in Cardiff Anarchist Network. She has been arrested many times, being strip searched & mocked by police, & has received several settlements for the persecution. She was spied on by #spycops Marco Jacobs & Mark Kennedy & travelled abroad with them

Weatherby: the victims have given up significant details of their lives, and have had nothing back from the police. None of my clients were mentioned in the police's opening statements. They see no justification for the spying, nor the protection of the #spycops

Weatherby: NMP says we have no faith in this Inquiry, characterised by extraordinary secrecy, and delay. Participants are tantalised by the promise of disclosure but it has yet to materialise because the overriding priority is the protection of the #spycops

Weatherby: 40 years since NMP began, 5 years since the start of the #SpyCopsInquiry , they're none the wiser. The state participants are obsessed with the privacy of the perpetrators. This Inquiry into secrecy, conducted in secrecy, keeping secrets.

Weatherby: The Met's refusal to affirm the Chair's impression that political #spycops are a thing of the past is noted.

Weatherby: The Met say we can't judge what they did because there aren't proper records. But that's not our fault and there are other ways of finding the truth.

Weatherby: The #SpyCopsInquiry must tell each participant what intel on them was passed to MI5 & why. The Home Secretary's terms given to the Inquiry prevents examination of acts outside England & Wales. She plainly knew #spycops acted beyond those borders.

Weatherby: There is nothing to stop the current Home Secretary from amending this restriction that obstructs the Inquiry's path to the truth

Weatherby: If #spycops were hired in England & Wales, planned activity and then travelled abroad to enact them, they surely should be part of the Inquiry.

Weatherby: The independence of the Inquiry allows the Chair to challenge state institutions, including the call to change the remit of the Inquiry, and that's what should be done here.

Weatherby: The #SpyCsopInquiry can drag the activities pof #spycops into the light of open justice, or it can continue to operate in the shadows with a preoccupation for secrecy, resulting in failure & whitewash.

Weatherby: The state participants are sitting on their hands, seeing what they can get away with. They should be forced to supply all relevant evidence in an accessible format.

Weatherby: Without transparency, it loses the non-state participants. without them how can the Inquiry challenge the info in police files?

Weatherby: Why did successive generations of police managers & politicians allow #spycops to happen? Accountability is a powerful tool to prevent recurrence of abuses.

With that, Weatherby concludes. Apologies if we missed anything, the live stream kept cutting out and glitching.

Mitting says that tomorrow there are two more statements to hear - presumably @helensteel12 & @DaveBlacklist who were scheduled to have spoken already - and there will be one or perhaps both before the Inquiry starts to take evidence from Tariq Ali. That's it for today.