Thread by @copscampaign

We'll be live-tweeting throughout today's evidential hearing.
Those unable to risk travelling to the 'hearing rooms' in central London (or not designated 'core participants' & therefore not welcome to attend) are otherwise left to follow a time-delayed transcript.

Instead of starting today with the opening statement of Dave Smith of the Blacklist Support Group, as planned, this will be rescheduled for another time. Helen Steel will also give her opening statement at a later date.

Tariq Ali has appeared on screen in the windowless 'hearing room', but cannot be heard.
The @ucpinquiry seems to have been plagued by (avoidable?) technical difficulties every day so far

@ucpinquiry You can try following the transcript at ucpi.org.uk/hearing/eviden… once we get started.... good luck!

@ucpinquiry Mitting has made a lovely pre-recorded video warning us all not to breach his restriction orders (the legal tool he has used to grant anonymity to the disgraced #spycops ). We are not allowed to make recordings or photographs of these proceedings.

@ucpinquiry We ARE allowed to tweet, but with a ten-minute delay between what we hear and what we send out.
We'll do our best to keep the public updated throughout the day. @tombfowler is also tweeting from the Amba Hotel today.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Tariq Ali is a journalist, writer and broadcaster, who remains politically engaged to this day.
He was part of the Ad Hoc group which organised the protests against the Vietnam War in 1968.
the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) was first formed in 1966 or 1967.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler David Barr QC began by reading excerpts from Ali's book, 'Street fighting years' (page 233 of the latest edition, if you have it lying around) – that cover the events of 22nd October 1967.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler This included an account of demonstrators coming very close to entering the US Embassy during a demonstration.

Ali said they dreamt of taking over the Embassy's telex machine and sending a message of support to the Viet Cong in Saigon.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Barr asked Ali to account for his use of the word 'militancy'.
He explained that other groups at the time were demanding peace in Vietnam, but the VSC didn't want “the peace of the graveyard”: they supported the Vietnamese people in their struggle against the American occupation.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The VSC discussed the idea of occupying the embassy, but some thought it was 'foolish' to imagine that the State wouldn't try to prevent this.
Ali then recollected the composition of the VSC's 'National Committee'.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Pat Jordan told the group that “every single one of my speeches had been noted and tudied by Special Branch”. As someone who had only been in the country for a short time, there was a risk of deportation as well as imprisonment.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The London VSC group was boosted by the support they received from American activists, politicians, black organisers and others.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler “We had no idea of the numbers of police”, including mounted police, and knew that if they were heavily outnumbered, there was no chance of even a 'token occupation' of the Embassy.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler A large German SDS contingent came to London from Berlin to join us for the demonstration. They had a lot of experience of street demonstrations, brought helmets & their own banner with them.
Barr asked what the 'official position' of the VSC was, and Ali did his best to explain

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Someone put 'Come armed' stickers on leaflets ahead of the demonstration.
Ali said that nobody in the VSC or the other groups active vs the War behaved in this way; at the time he wondered if these stickers were the work of agents provocateurs.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler fun fact: Amongst the American anti-war activists who were in the UK at the time, some of them dodging the draft, was Bill Clinton

Ali confirmed that the VSC denounced these stickers at the time – he has a very clear memory of this.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Barr asked about the other groups that existed at the time, for example the Maoists.

Ali explained that he had very little to do with the Maoists – they acted autonomously on the whole, and only 'grudgingly' accepted any of the VSC's 'discipline'.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali recalled an Irish Maoist group led by someone called Ed Davoren, “but I do not recall him saying anything particularly outrageous”

The Maoiststended to regard the VSC committee as “revisonists and class traitors and whatever else”...

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler He cannot recall the names o f the “small anarchist groups” which denounced the VSC and often didn't bother joining in with the demonstrations.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler He remembered seeing the anarchist newspaper, 'Freedom', but felt the anarchists were “not too strong” - there weren't many of them, and supposedly they were “easy to identify” from their t-shirts (?!)

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The March demo is described on p254 of the aforementioned book. “A marvellous display” of colourful flags and banners”
They wanted a new world.
They were aware of Prague's 'New Spring' – there was a feeling that change was possible.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Barr asked more about the German SDS (not to be confused with the #spycops unit that later adopted that acronym!) and their actions on that day.

Ali described linking arms in solidarity, to defend the demo from police attack.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler There were several attempts to break through the police lines that day – this wasn't just the German radicals, “nice English students” were involved as well.

The square & surrounding streets was full of people, there were scuffles, the police decided to send in the horses...

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali said he had no memory of what exactly the Germans did that day. He doubts that they acted alone, they were all part of a huge protest.
The tabloid press were not used to seeing Germans at demonstrations, so gave this a lot of coverage.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler There was also a French contingent, but they were not mentioned (because they didn't adopt a visble fashion like the helmets?)

Ali does not think the presence of any one group warranted such empahasis.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler "You would have to be slightly deranged to imagine that a VSC demo would lead to revolution in Britain".
Two thirds of the British population supported the war in Vietnam, very different to the French at the time.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler "We wanted the toppling of regimes in Eastern Europe and their replacement with the Czech model: 'socialism with a human face'."

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali and his comrades felt that serious socialism was “not possible in western Europe without democracy very firmly attached to it”.
Portugal came far closer than most other countries to socialist revolution in 1975.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler When he visited Vietnam, he asked if international brigades would be a useful response of solidarity from other parts of the world

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler This is not the Spanish Civil War. The last thing we want is for people like you to come and die here" he was bluntly told. International brigades might offend the Russians and the Chinese.
"All we want from you is to build movements abroad" and "help to bring the war to an end"

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The group's politics evolved over time, but they were generally in favour of workers' councils, and far more direct democracy.
The current 'First past the post' system distorts election results, delivering a succession of Govts who have only received a minority of the votes

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Obviously they were in favour of abolishing the House of Lords.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler We now go back to March 1968, on p255 of the book...
Barr questioned Ali about the throwing of marbles at horses.
However he did not witness this.
He heard people shouting “the Cossacks are coming” though.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Support for the VSC was not exclusively from the young, they were supported by people of all classes, some of whom supplied funding and valuable advice about more effective ways of dealing with horses (involving a string touching the horse's knee)

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Barr seems quite obsessed in the matter of marbles, smoke-bombs and other items that may have been brought to the demonstration by individuals.
Ali is the only one to mention the injuries, some serious, suffered by demonstrators on the day. These were caused by the police.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler After a 15 minute break we will restart

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The first evidence to be shown on the screen was a Special Branch report, prepared for the Director Of Public Prosecutions, following the demo in March 1968. The group interrupted theatre shows to talk about Vietnam.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Actors were hostile on the whole (with the strange exception of the Black & White Minstrel Show), whereas the audiences were mostly sympathetic to the anti-war cause.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The next picture was of a Guardian article from May 1968, entitled 'Tariq Ali talks of new London demonstration'.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler There was one SDS women who said that the only way to defeat the war machine in her country was to emulate the NLF guerillas who had attacked the US Embassy in Saigon

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler She was suggesting a bombing campaign vs the corporations who were profiting from the war in Vietnam (by producing chemical weapons etc)

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler This was an American woman, a member of Students for a Democratic Society (yet another 'SDS' - not the same as the German organisation mentioned earlier) and the account taken from p293 of Ali's book.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Traiq Ali explained that he argued strongly against this tactical approach, calling it "suicidal in every sense" - "I had to think very hard whether the person who wanted to embark on such a course was deranged or a straightforward provocateur"

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Asked about what he knew at the time about police/ Special Branch infiltration, Ali said "We had no evidence, obviously, but we had no doubt that we were under surveillance - there was hysteria in the presss."

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler “One one occasion a postman dragged me out of the office and told me that our letters were opened every day”

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Once upon a time, some "hippy anarchists" spent the night in the Black Dwarf office in Soho - Ali and the others were horrifed to see the next morning that these guests had painted a large diagram of how to make a Molotov cocktail on the wall.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler "We covered their 'crude' artwork with a poster. The very next day, the office was raided by the police – they went straight to the poster and pulled it down to uncover the 'artwork' beneath."

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Before this, the office was often made available as somewhere for comrades visiting from other places to sleep.
After this incident, the Black Dwarf group became more strict about letting people sleep in their office.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Barr: Were Molotovs ever used at any VSC demo, to your knowledge?
No, replied Ali.
No, he had no knowledge of anyone “proposing or intending to take a Molotov cocktail to a VSC-organised demo”.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali questioned the police's description of information gathered from infiltrating a national VSC meeting, and pointed out that this 'intelligence; was not particularly 'valuable' or secret, there was no need to infiltrate the group in order to get that information.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler He challenged the view that it was either vital or necessary.
The route of the demo was publicly debated, and much contested by various groupings
Some people "wanted a punch-up in Grosvenor Square, which we were opposed to".

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The next document brought up as evidence was a Special Branch report on Black Dwarf, which reproduced a column published on the back page of the magazine in October 1968, entitled 'Softly softly'.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Although Ali was Editor of Black Dwarf, he was often away travelling so did not personally oversee the content of each issue. He would try to “cast an eye” over it. He agreed that this particular piece was not especially well written...

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler He was asked if he still considered the article to be “light-hearted”? He responded to explain that the advice was not to bring anything dodgy (fireworks or marbles, for example) on to the coaches that would bring them to the demo in London.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler “The coaches must get through!” was in capital letters. The main message was that the police should be given no excuse to stop the demonstrators from reaching their intended destination.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali has no idea why razor blades atre mentioned.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The VSC planned a “peaceful show of strength” in October 1968.

We don't want mindless militancy"

"We want this to a be a politically miltant demo of solidarity not only with Vietnam but with each other"

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Stewards were provided by all the organisations who supported the demo, organised transport etc.
They would have been briefed ahead of the demo, there was also a short briefing that morning on the Embankment.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Asked “To what extent did the marchers exhibit 'revolutionary self-discipline'?”
Ali responded: “We were so relaxed that we forgot we were passing Downing St”.
He recollected having to scribble a 'Dear Harold' message to the Prime Minister of the day on a scrap of paper.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler There was an attempt made to kidnap Ali, by a group of unknown men. They did this the night before the demo, with the aim of preventing him from attending it. This was in Carlisle Street in Soho, just outside the office, and luckily was prevented by his comrades, who noticed.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler Ali pointed out that “It's one thing to write some nonsense... but a completely different thing to actually carry it out"
It wasn't forbidden to write things; at that time people were writing all sorts of things.

@ucpinquiry @tombfowler The next document was a Special Branch report on the VSC 'Autumn Offensive' (i.e. the demo on 27th October). It describes the VSC as 'Trotskyist-dominated' and 'the most influential' of the extremist groups.

The Inquiry was having yet more technical issues so seemed unable to display this document at first.

Page 11 lists the number of arrests made before the demo (26, only 3 of whom received summonses), during the demo (17) and after the demo (1, someone who threw a bottle at the Embassy).

Interestingly, it notes that “Apart from three fascists, none had hitherto come to notice”.

The VSC had no authority over those who attended the protests, or how they behaved, and had no way of compelling them to act in a certain way.

Ali was not in Grosvenore Square himself that day. He only got third-hand reports, largely from the press, of the events there – no surprise to anyone that there would be police there.

Page 4 of the same document details some of the arrests made before the Oct demo.
These included one German national found with a gas pistol, and an unspecified amount of cannabis resin.

There was also someone who'd been found trying to gain entry to police stables at Hammersmith, it is thought that he intended tampering with the police horses stabled there

And "two youths stopped by police in Green Street, found to be in possession of radio-jamming equipment and perspex eye shields"

Ali got a chuckle from the room when he said "this is an eye-opener" – "I had no idea there were any Maoists in Nottingham"

p329 of Ali's book talks of 1968 as being the "last big assembly of revolutionary forces".
What he thought was needed at the time was a unified youth movement, that united young people from all the different left-wing groups, including those booted out of the Labour party.

We saw a report of the SVC's 1969 national conference.
{well, even Ali complained that it was near-impossible to read this document - it was v faded]

According to the second paragraph (under '1st Feburary 1969') the credentials of both official delegates and accredited observers were checked at the door. Voting cards were issued to delegates only. It was a closed event, not open to the public.

Barr asked if the closed nature of the event meant that a plainclothes (rather than an undercover) policeman would not have been able to gain entry to this conference?

@threadreaderapp unroll