8 Responses to “Class War Reply To The New Statesman”

1. stephen armstrong Posted: Aug 9th, 2008 at 12:39 am

   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. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

2. Paul Stott Posted: Aug 9th, 2008 at 8:38 am

   Hi Stephen - Thanks for replying. I hope the New Statesman are big enough to publish the Class War reply as a letter. As for your comments, what we seem to have is the word of someone who campaigns for a reformed, more efficient MI5 (their ex-officer Annie Machon) and anonymous ex or current security sources. As Mandy Rice Davis would put it “well they would say that, wouldn’t they”……… I hope the book stands up better……….. As for Ms Machon, she has had 3 years to speak out against the anti-semitism and fruitbats in the 9/11 truth movement, but is yet to do so. However she finds time to push stories dissing revolutionary organisations in the left wing media. If there is a story here Stephen, it is right under your nose. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

3. stephen armstrong Posted: Aug 9th, 2008 at 11:07 am

   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. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

4. Paul Stott Posted: Aug 9th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

   Stephen - The one person in Class War we have established worked for the ‘other side’ in the era was an Andy Bryant. As I assume Annie Machon will have obeyed the Official Secrets Act and not mentioned his name to you, you can familiarise yourself with his case on the link below. It is worth noting that whilst Machon and Shayler could have provided considerable service to radical groups by honestly discussing state operations against them, both have always declined to do so. Indeed during their flirtations with the Stop the War Coalition it is hard to imagine they did not meet operatives they had previously run! Most of the information we have about Bryant appeared only because Green Anarchists barristers we going to go for a contempt of court in the Gandalf case, after Shayler’s red baiting revelations about Anarchists in the Mail on Sunday. http://libcom.org/library/david-shayler-class-war-left-groups Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

5. Sean Hogan Posted: Aug 9th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

   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. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

6. Kenyon Posted: Aug 12th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

   Interesting debate. One thing I do know here is that Annie Machon is not always telling the truth - I spent years in the London 9/11 movement and was present on occasions when she and David clashed with anarchists. Larry O’Hara is not my cup of tea, but I think he got it right when he suggested that the 2 are dubious. My own feeling is that the 2 are infiltrating the 9/11 movement. Most of us are not drug taking, messianic, anti-semitic spooks. But throw them in, along with David Icke and Belinda Mackenzie, and a sloppy or slanted journalist can ignore eyewitnesses such as William Rodriguez and Rick Siegel, they can trash the science which contradicts the US gov report, and they can spread misinformation. Perhaps Armstrong would like to commnent on deliberate misinformation and opinion slants in the press? Or take a real look at Shayler and Machon and just how they got invovled with us - just when Jimmy Walter was spending over $1m to promote the research - and how they muscled their way in with Belinda Mackenzie - whose source of money is a mystery - and who never really accounted for her actions in Iran Aid, which the gov closed down after it destroyed its records and could not tell the Charity Commission why £5m went into a personal account? Just a few questions there that Mackenzie does not like to answer. In the meantime, the NS needs to get better sources than Shayler and Machon. Speaking of the NS, why did it give space to these Johnny-come-lately clowns when it ran its piece on the 9/11 movement a couple years ago? Where was its research on William Rodriguez, Kevin Ryan or Scott Forbes? Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

7. Louise Posted: Aug 12th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

   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. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this

8. Sean Hogan Posted: Aug 21st, 2008 at 4:22 pm

   Although at this late stage I doubt Mr Armstrong’s going to return here to defend his position, if his ‘research’ for this article resembles the research for his book, War Plc, it’s no wonder he makes unsustainable claims like this one about Class War. In his book he claims first that private security firms were granted immunity from prosecution ‘immediately after the invasion’ of Iraq (p. 5). Yet further on we get the truth: ‘Bremer’s final move was the notorious Order 17′, issued in June 2004, more than a year after the invasion (p. 87). This is just one of the more glaring bits of internal evidence pointing to a pisspoor standard of research and of reading the drafts. There’s a chapter about ‘Mark Britten’ which doesn’t seem to have the second source Mr Armstrong claims to always seek. For a journalist of many years standing, and a Sunday Times contributing editor to boot, this is - depending on one’s standpoint - either very disappointing or just what one would expect. Reply | Quote selected text | Link to this