Class War Reply To The New Statesman

I never write anything unless it's second sourced and Machon was not the only source for the feature as even a casual read will show. I've never spoken to Shayler, but clearly in preparing the feature I spoke to other security service sources and ex-security service sources. To be fair, as the old organisation pretty much fell apart in the 1990s you can see their point, although your classic newspaper front pages were my favourite purchase on demos. Page Three Hospitalised Copper. Love it.

And please- buy the book. Or, as you're anarchists, steal it. Lots of stuff about government sponsored mercenaries and private spies and Iraq and Afghanistan and just everything. War plc. Faber and Faber. Really – its right up your street.

Hi Paul

I don’t think its disrespectful to a revolutionary organisation – or indeed any organisation – to say the security services penetrated it. In a weird sort of way, quite the opposite. It’s well documented how thoroughly the KGB penetrated SIS, well documented how MI5 penetrated CPGB, C18, SWP etc. – I would expect the security services to attempt penetration of any organisation deemed a threat. If anything, a revolutionary or socially disruptive organisation that wasn’t on the receiving end of such activity would be broadly speaking irrelevant and ineffectual. Why bother penetrating the remnants of the Communist Party today?

You may consider it a convenient smokescreen, but I do have to respect the anonymity of sources when they ask for it. You don’t know me or my work so you have no reason to trust this statement but I would not print a claim like that unless I had reason to believe it and that would involve checking it with people I felt were expertly qualified to verify it.

Of course, unlike the penetration of CAAT by private spies, no paper trail has been left to identify the names of the individuals involved in the penetration that I believe took place so you are perfectly within your rights to dismiss everything I say.

As the feature was concerned with identifying a new and, I believe, terrifying trend amongst former spooks to enter the private sector and use their skills against organisations such as Class War, CAAT and Plane Stupid for the profit of corporations I do faintly resent being classed in the same sentence as a man who now believes he is the messiah and described as limited and biased.

But then, the combative nature of Class War has always been something I’ve admired so I can’t really complain.

Class War's demise has been something often trumpeted, but the facts speak a different story. Both Class War the paper and Class War the group continue in rude health. And rarely ruder than when looking at Shayler and Machon. Machon's the subject of an article in the latest Class War, issue 94, which makes the timing of her recent pronouncement on state control of CW interesting, to say the least.

As a current member of CW, and a member during the period CW were alleged to be run by the state, I don't recognise the picture she (and unnamed others) are trying to paint. Whilst at the time we in CW recognised the state's attention, we had, and continue to have, measures in place to limit the potential for infiltration. The difficulties we faced in the 1990s were internal divisions: a split in the early 1990s, which saw the formation of the ephemeral Class War Organisation, and the departure in 1997 of a number of members who decided the CW project had had its day. As far as I know, MI5 has claimed credit for neither of these divisions.

What Shayler has said is that we were run by an alkie who went back to his wife and children on the weekend. He made this claim in public at the debate with Larry O'Hara a couple of years ago. Now, we've had our fair share of drinkers, but we'd have noticed someone who never turned up to actions and demos!

Talk is cheap: and there is no substance to the claims Shayler/Machon have made. SImply put, what they and these anonymous sources claim doesn't measure up to what actually happened in the 1990s. Any decline in CW was due to other circumstances, to people leaving and not being replaced, to a hangover from the Poll Tax, and to the ebb and flow of life in the anarchist milieu. As in other areas of life, we had some fat years followed by some lean years.

When groups have been prone to infiltration, journalists have often got on the bandwagon. The 'revelations' printed in the press about the Wombles, about the environmental protestors of the 1990s, about the Mayday protests and the protests against DSEi illustrate this. By contrast, there is no comparable article about journalists infiltrating Class War. This is not because there'd be nothing to write about! It's because we've long taken security seriously. This itself suggests that we're secure; as does the experience of one member who was asked by the police, in the run-up to Mayday 2001, for information on Class War and the Movement Against the Monarchy, being told that in contrast to other demonstrators they were 'beyond the pale'.

If Mr Armstrong feels there is something to the MI5 claims, please put up – or else retract.

Kenyon, I found reading your comment interesting. I also used to be involved in the 9/11 movement and particularly found your comments about Belinda Mackenzie fascinating…especially about the Iran Aid…never knew that!

Thanks.

It seems that you are maintaining a steady blogging pace. Well done! Looking for more updates from your end. Thanks a lot! regards