If I remember rightly, Militant Tendency dissolved at the start of the 90s and some of its members turned themselves into the Respect Party. And what's this about a front organisation? I didn't know Militant Tendency did front organisations, I thought that was the SWP.

if by anti police you mean, not enitrely behind the actions of those demonstartors then I dont think this video/article is particularily pro police.

Normally reposts are annoying, but this is a really fascinating video - thanks.
It wasn't pro-police at all though! And The Guardian are - like many liberals they have a kind of flirtatious relationship with anti-police and subversive sentiment.
And yeah the spy would be very easy to uncover - they say where he infiltrated, etc. - but to be fair he is now speaking out against it, or at least telling his story to the public so 'we can make an informed decision as to whether that kind of policing should continue'...
It's fucking scary to be frank. At least ten spys in activist groups in London at any one time. Who have they got? Anti-fascist groups probably. Probably Camp for Climate Action. Even Meltdown? Sadly there isn't a strong enough anarchist group for them to bother infiltrating...

I was on that demo, I helped organise a couple of coaches for the Liverpool University Anti Fascist Society.
The police laid into the demonstrators and started a fucking riot.
Of two possible routes for the march, the organisers (a combination of Militant and SWP people) had not agreed with the police beforehand which one they were going to use. A mile into the march, at the point where the two routes diverged, the riot police lined up across the road and blocked both routes. When the chief steward went up to them to find out what was going on, one of them clubbed her over the head. They then laid into the demonstrators with their batons. Naturally, people started throwing whatever was to hand to defend themselves. There was then a three-hour standoff, until the police got out of the way and let people pass along the route that DIDN'T lead past the BNP 'bookshop'. They continued to attack the demonstrators along the way. I was in the line of stewards at the back of the march who were protecting it from being charged by mounted police (I had the doubtful honour of being photographed doing so and my photo put on the front page of the Socialist Worker that week.) At one point, a gang of riot police with no numbers came out of a side street and started shoving the stewards with their riot shields, knocking a few to the ground.

When we got to the park where the demo was to have ended, and they had more room, they really ran amok. I saw one copper run after a man, club him over the head a number of times and carry on clubbing him when he fell, with a look on his face that suggested he was enjoying himself. I failed to get a photograph of him because at that point I was shoved to the ground myself and trampled over by a posse of riot cops.

The idea that a 'violent faction' was planning to go on the march and burn down the BNP bookshop is COMPLETE BOLLOCKS. The march had been advertised for weeks beforehand, the BNP knew it was going to happen and they had their members out in force to guard the shop; besides which it was always heavily fortified against attack. And who the hell sets fire to a building on a public demo when the place is crawling with journos with cameras and riot cops? I've yet to meet anybody who goes in for such kamikaze-style activism.

No, this was a planned attack on the anti-fascist movement to discourage people from attending demos.

I'm still riled about it! I hope somebody outs this twat. I knew a few of the Militant people at the time and I'd love to know who he was.

Here are the pictures of the person, taken over the years, from the linked video.

Undercovers tend to go in and find absolutely nothing, and so end up wasting years and years amongst groups of relatively caring, peaceful and stable people. They can't exactly come out and say 'look at me! look at me! i just spent 5 years undercover monitoring people planning... totally peaceful demonstrations and legal actions against facist groups!'. They like people to think they've done something constructive and like to think that they're 'tough police' by posing amongst activists. We all know the reality though! I guess this guy wants to sell a book next about how he 'lived amongst terrorists', a bit like Radford who was the snake amongst AR people.

In the Observer article Stasi A says he was introduced to his target after hitting a guy in the refectory of a college. It shouldn't be too hard to out him if this is true. Anyone remember this altercation? Got any pictures and name of this guy? Then put them up here. He also says he was branch secretary of Youth Against Racism in Europe for 2 years between 1993 and 1997. Anyone remember him?

quote from Observer article regarding the above altercation - 'the guy who was giving the abuse took a swing at me. Big mistake, He was soon on the floor out cold.'

The macho posturing of this dick doesn't quite fit with his idea of himself as he later says, after a battle with uniformed cops
'If anyone accused me of violence there would have been a dozen people willing to come forward and swear it wasn't true.'

He further admits he and his undercover colleagues attacked the uniform police on a number of occasions. This is otherwise known as 'agent provocateur'.

re the Welling incident, he says he 'infiltrated' (ooh sounds all WW2 covert ops doesn't it) a group who intended to burn the BNP bookshop. More likely he was proposing the burning as a way of justifying his undercover existence to his bosses, and giving the uniforms an excuse to go in heavy on the protesters. He makes it sound like he was just reporting back 'intelligence', no mention of the orders he was given by his Stasi bosses.

Like so many ego-ridden Stasi, this knob has an idea of himself as some sort of paragon of virtue against the 'potentially violent' protesters. There will always be room in the Secret Police for Walter Mitty characters like this, who end up lying to everyone around them including their families. Sick sick sick.

Read up on the McLibel trial for more background on the Stasi and how they try to get groups to become more violent, so as to justify their own surveillance, and the inevitable state backlash if they are successful.

 http://www.mcspotlight.org/case/trial/story.html

This story may well be true. Then again, it may never happened. Or this loser may have only played a minor role as an agent provocateur, or a had a brief period of infiltration.

The point is, he could say anything at all. And whose purpose does it serve? Answer: the filth.

At the end of the film, he issues activists with the following threat: "(The police) can send an SDS officer into your home, into your life, for 4 to 5 years". And we already have people on this thread speculating about which movements might be infiltrated.

This story is most probably fabricated or embellished by the police for the purposes of causing internal strife within activist groups. Don't let it have the desired effect, and please keep speculation about various groups and individuals offline.

The YRE did have a more miltant group nicknamed ' the away team ' , who were involved in both defence and more proactive physical confrontation with the far right, most of these were in the short lived No Platform group which also involed a lot of the original Antifa England mob , It shouldnt be too hard for one of the London YRE people to out this person.....Its not exactly unexpected really is it....

The disgraceful article in today's Observer (Undercover policeman reveals how he infiltrated UK's violent activists, 14 March 2010) claims to 'expose' how "an officer from a secretive unit of the Metropolitan police" was "working undercover among anti-racist groups in Britain, during which he routinely engaged in violence against members of the public and uniformed police officers to maintain his cover."
Lois Austin, YRE chair 1992-1996; Hannah Sell, YRE secretary 1992-1996

No one from The Observer contacted present or previous representatives of the anti-racist group he refers to, Youth Against Racism in Europe (YRE) for our side of this story.

At the time we were secretary and chair of the YRE, which is a democratic organisation of young people.

Both supporters of the Militant Tendency (now the Socialist Party), we were elected to lead the YRE, which organised mass, peaceful protests against racism and in particular against the far-right thugs of the BNP and their ilk.

YRE began in 1992 with the largest ever European demonstration against racism, with 40,000 young people marching in Brussels.

During our campaigning, YRE often faced violence from the far-right and unfortunately also from the police.
Warned

We also warned of the danger of police and state infiltration of the left, which has now been proved to be correct, not just by this report but, also, in The Defence of the Realm - the Authorised History of M15, by Christopher Andrew, published in 2009.

Democratic and peaceful left wing organisations were infiltrated by the secretive and unaccountable forces of the state.

Ludicrously, the article refers to the undercover officer's "key success" being the discovery that the 1993 demonstration against the BNP's headquarters in Welling, South East London was going to be "far larger than thought".
Racist murders

This demonstration took place after four racist murders, including that of Stephen Lawrence, had taken place within two miles of the BNP Headquarters.

As organisers of the demonstration, we repeatedly told the police that it was going to be very large.

In the end it was 50,000 strong. We argued for the demonstration to be allowed to march peacefully past the BNP HQ. The response of the police, as the film on the Observer's website makes all too clear, was to refuse permission for the demonstration to march and then carry out an incredibly brutal attack on unarmed and peaceful young people who were carrying out their democratic right to protest against racism.

It is surely not a coincidence that this 'expose' has taken place now, at a time when a new generation of young people are becoming involved in campaigning against racism and the far-right BNP.

Yesterday, in Barking, where Nick Griffin is standing for parliament, Youth Fight for Jobs - an organisation of young people with the backing of trade unions, the YRE and the Socialist Party - marched under the same slogan we adopted in the early 1990s - 'Jobs and Homes not Racism'.

The Observer would do better to report this kind of anti-racist campaigning rather than attempt to smear the movement which successfully marginalised the BNP in the early 1990s.

Lois and Hannah of YRE / Socialist Party are clearly our allies against racism and capitalism but I think they make some mistakes. They should know who the raping fascist pig bastard was; not his real name of course but the name he went by; they might even have some photos of him. They state: "As organisers of the demonstration, we repeatedly told the police that it was going to be very large." Mistake! Tell the bastards as little as possible; they are the enemy.

Why are the SP not telling us what they know about the bastard? He fucking raped their members! Lying to someone to get them to sleep with you is a form of rape.

"And who the hell sets fire to a building on a public demo when the place is crawling with journos with cameras and riot cops?" The Greeks.

The coverage of this story notes that a unit of undercover Met cops had long hair and beards as 'cover'.

At Climate Camp in the City there was a fifty-something man with long hair (possibly ponytail) and a beard helping gather together the tat as midnight approached, who was keen to ensure all the glass bottles were being collected up so they couldn't be used as missiles. The other tatters agreed, and he was constructive about other movements of tat. He was also slender-featured, atypically for police, but something about his confidence and manner seemed very out of place compared with other fifty-somethings who attended (hardly any were still present at this stage anyway). This man came across as though he could have been a headteacher/university lecturer/senior public sector manager. Perhaps alternatively he was the parent of someone younger attending.

If I understand this correctly, the SDS infiltrate protest movements NOT with a view to prosecuting anyone, and it seems their evidence is inadmissable due to their dubious methods, but simply to try and stop big demos getting 'out of hand'. However, whilst inside these protest movements they carry out, organise and promote direct action, using inside police knowledge and with virtual immunity to those they act with (at least for those specific actions)... Who do we write to get some of these guys in our group???

Shut the fuck up! Don't accuse someone unless you have got beyond a reasonable doubt; this speculation is grassing. That's what the SP do.

...the week before Bolton! As ever, the messages are clear:
1) We're watching you.
2) Be afraid of these violent anarchist nasty people that want to burn your house down. Stay at home, do nothing.

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Tango Hotel Echo Papa Oscar Lima Indigo Charlie Echo

See you in Bolton!

its India not Indigo

seems to be a perfect example of the filth trying to scare us into inaction. according to this, i can't even trust my bum of a friend who i have known for years and does nothing more than sit in the squat all day. lol. fuck the police. there have always been infiltrators, there have always been informants, but remember there will always be resistance. this system WILL fall. it is the law of nature. sometimes nature needs a little catalyst ;o)

don't stop fighting!

..interesting to see the hard evidence of this sort of deep cover ops against protest scene, I'm sure that this is possibly, from eco warrior camps to ALF cliques, leftists etc etc. I think the only realistic way to protect yourselves is through anarchy...in terms of the occult...thus I think it problematic for the state to overtly infiltrate groupings like the peace convoy due to this factor. If one is pyscikally open due to this and the added factor of pyscotropic drug useage, then inflitration can become a very very frightening pyscological nightmare for the individual cop. This is why (sick) its very very important to 'keep it normal' in terms of magic, so that the state entity can sustain in general group pyscology terms of of course for the individual undercover cop. In other words real anarchy is a karmic trap for the state entity..and its agents.

It is by the way important in 'medicene' terms not to be in conflict with real tribal sovereignty, which also is this karmic trap thing for 'babylon'...you know what I'm talking about ALF people.

Thus convoy cannot be inflitrated, but ego world type groups such as EF!, etc etc can be due to the factors I describe here in words..but note of course that we are really talking magic and consciousness in this matter and not words on a computer screen. Again any real magic or medicene is a karmic trap of ultimate nightmare pyscology for 'babylon', the 'west', for the western state entity/agents...due to, essentially, ritual/magic factors. So thus again, that might well be problematic for materialistic leftist cliques/individuals.( as well as the state).