Last night's 'True Spies' investigates infriltrators of Militant, SWP, WRP, NUM, and the far right.

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday November 04, 2002 00:58 by TV reviewer

The BBC2 series 'True Spies' investigating the British states infriltration of Left wing groups and the far right.

Last nights episode was the second in the series. It dealt with the British secret service's infriltartion of the Far right group The National Front. Also the Militant Tendency of the Labour Party, the Socialist Workers' Party, the WRP, and the National Union of Miners.

The SWP and the ANL were infriltrated. The secret agent even collected a lot of money for the ANL! Hain (now New Labour) said he didnt mind as money was collected by the spy! The secret service said it was easy to enter the SWP as they were always looking for members and didn't mind who joined!

The Militant were also covered. One senior spy even sat at the back of a national conference in a cupboard. This is because they found it hard to get spies into Militant. Dave Nellist (one of the 3 Miliant MPs) was interviewed by the programme.

The Healyite WRP appeared as a cultish group (which they were!). Redgrave was spouting on about the 'catastrophe' that was due.

The role of the secret service in breaking the miners strike was particularly interesting. Also their role in undermining the Leyland Strike.

The far right was touched off, but they mainly concerntrated on the Revolutionary Left in Britain during the 70s and 80s. To be honest it seems that there seems no reason for infriltrating the left wing groups (Militant, SWP etc) These groups were open (and still are) about their politics.

However the programme did show the shameful role of the state in undermining strikes in key industries by spies.

Next sunday the series will be covering the Secret service's spies today, and who they consider as 'subversive'