Scotland & Nuke Spycops

At least nine officers from London’s secret undercover policing unit, known as spycops, aided the infiltration and surveillance of anti-nuclear protests in Scotland between 1978 and 1983, The Ferret can reveal. Two spycops, who had adopted the names of dead children and pretended to be anti-nuclear activists, joined attempts to occupy the site for a nuclear power station at Torness in East Lothian in 1980 and 1981. They were both picked up, detained and then released by Lothian police. The pair, one of whom said he was nicknamed “Trotsky”, were supported by three senior officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), who travelled to Scotland to liaise with local police. Along with four other spycops, they produced 16 reports for the Met’s Special Branch and the UK security service, MI5, on anti-nuclear groups active in Scotland. The groups included the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), the Torness Alliance and Friends of the Earth. The SDS reports contained minutes of meetings, mailing lists, internal briefings and funding appeals. They included details of hundreds of individuals and groups across the UK, and gave inside accounts of campaigners’ plans, problems and disagreements. The spycops were also strongly criticised by anti-nuclear campaigners in Scotland. “This is the kind of stuff you expect to hear from the bad old days of Eastern Europe,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the former director of Friends of the Earth Scotland. “Spying on legitimate groups trying to promote peace and protect the environment, some of them registered charities, is an affront to the very idea of democracy. Police infiltrators taking part in illegal activities and thereby, wittingly or unwittingly, encouraging others to do so, shows just how out of control this spying activity was.” Pete Roche, who worked for SCRAM and Friends of the Earth in the 1970s and 1980s, said: “So far from being a threat to democracy, we were seeking to protect it from an autocratic government system that, as we now see, was prepared to use underhand tactics to force through unpopular policies.”

The Ferret 11th Aug 2024

https://theferret.scot/spycops-torness-anti-nuclear-scotland/

The National 11th Aug 2024

https://www.thenational.scot/news/24510493.revealed-spycops-snooped-anti-nuclear-protests-scotland/