NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND issue 2
below the reproduced front cover & editorial you will find
a detailed description
of the articles in this issue
a sample article (on fascist/secret state activity in West Yorkshire)
details of how to buy this/other
issues of Notes From the Borderland
NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND issue 2 green colour cover 44 pages
The second number of this uniquely hard-hitting
parapolitical publication saw NFB cut through the fog of disinformation swirling around the body politic in a big way. Stories
include:
--Our first, and most lengthy (16 page) to date, exploration of the careers of ex-MI5 officers David Shayler & Annie
Machon. Given their prominence, no serious parapolitical magazine could ignore the pair, although we did what nobody had done
till then, or has subsequently--cross-referred public claims to known details of MI5 operations they were implicated in. Thankfully,
our ongoing research into MI5's post-Cold War agenda, published in 'Turning Up the Heat' previously, put us in an advantageous position.
Areas covered include MI5/Special Branch operations against the IRA, Combat 18, Meibion Glyndwr, Anti-EU groups, Animal
Liberation, Anti-Fascism, Anarchists, the Far Left (SWP & Red Action). The motives for Shayler and Machon's disclosures
were analysed, also the invidious predicament civil rights group Liberty found itself in by too close proximity to the pair.
The points of contrast--and convergence--between the Shayler/Machon line & official MI5 pronouncements are reviewed. Intriguingly, one
convergence encompassed a crucial issue--Shayler Machon & MI5 all agreed MI5 no longer monitored 'subversives'. NFB's point
was that they still did (and do), but merely reclassified them as 'terrorist. All this way before 9/11 and subsequent posturing
by Machon & Shayler as genuine 'civil libertarians'. Virtually none of the sharp questions raised here have been answered,
or evidence refuted--in short this is a must-read text for all those gullible liberals & more recently 9/11 'Truth' campaigners
(see NFB issue 7) taken in by the charmless pair of snake-oil merchants.
--The 'Last Century Left' often spuriously dismiss
the idea of Leftists researching the secret state and its impact on politics (unless it be to furnish excuses for perennial political
failure). The excellent work of Victor Serge is ignored & hackneyed platitudes from Lenin trotted out. Unmentioned
in all this (even less understood) is the masterpiece by Karl Marx 'Herr Vogt: A Spy in the Workers Movement'. A text exemplary
in its method, showing just how at home Marx would be with modern-day parapolitical analysis. Indeed, the text is
enduringly relevant for anybody interested in radical social transformation, and a strong corrective to the liberal pap that
characterises the Last Century Left approach to such matters as the majority of secret state-planted media stories today.
--The
importance of comprehending how the secret state interferes in target's lives on a micro level cannot be overstated. We explore
here Mind Control techniques used to intimidate individuals.
--We evaluate the career of fascist thug/agent provocateur
Matthew Collins, who claims to have renounced his past views and now works for the MI5-linked Searchlight magazine/organisation.
His story, past/present, doesn't add up by any stretch of the imagination. We outline disturbing allegations about Collins never
properly responded to (he can't have been at the off-license all the time?).
--the dissolution of the 'Revolutionary Communist
Party' associated with LM magazine is briefly reviewed: the transformation of key personnel into the pro-capitalist 'Institute of
Ideas' is for another day...
--Events outside England's capital are often de-prioritised by the London-based media
& political establishments, not a mistake NFB makes: illustrated by this detailed examination of murky political goings on
in West Yorkshire involving Combat 18, the BNP, anti-fascists, Special Branch, Searchlight, MI5 and Channel 4. A classic study
exemplifying the NFB approach--and given the Redwatch resurgence, a timely reminder of how it all began. This piece is essential
reading in order to make sense of the Redwatch Revived piece in NFB 8. Article below minus graphics
A fact & fun-packed edition, full of in-depth research, backed up with a wealth of internal documents, all fully footnoted. NFB is a magazine those hungry for solid information will love--and people engaged in political dirty tricks bitterly hate.
In short, all the in-depth investigative journalism you could wish for--and would never find in the Guardian or Panorama.
AGAIN PLUCKING THE WHITE ROSE: YORKSHIRE REVISITED
In my book 'Turning Up the Heat: MI5 After the Cold War', published
October 1994, there was one section that brought the house down, provoking a furious response, culminating in October 1995 with my
near-lynching at the Anarchist Book Fair in Conway Hall, London. This concerned my daring to allude to events surrounding the
theft of a contact/address book from a Leftist/Community newspaper in Leeds, the now defunct Northern Star, and the subsequent appearance
of its contents in Combat 18 magazines issues 1 and 3, distributed in 1993 and 1994 [1]. What makes a review of events
in Leeds timely is two recent items that have sent shock-waves throughout the anti-fascist movement. The first item was the
April 1998 revelation in Fighting Talk (journal of Anti-Fascist Action) that AFA have proscribed the Searchlight organisation for
their activities in Yorkshire and elsewhere. The second item is the follow up explanation in the June-July issue of Red
Action--going into more detail on the circumstances of that proscription, and revealing that AFA in Yorkshire have been reconstituted,
following the forcible dissolution of Leeds AFA and Huddersfield AFA branches for working hand-in-glove with Searchlight. The
former piece I reproduce in full later on--the latter piece I strongly suggest interested readers purchase [2].
Below
I outline the essential features of what happened in Leeds 1993-4, and the various responses to it. Then a few events in the
last year or so, most significantly in Bradford, will be sketched in. Finally, I will draw attention to the possible ramifications
of what has gone on, both in Yorkshire and nationally.
WHAT HAPPENED IN LEEDS 1993-4
Nobody disputes that in Spring 1993
local Leeds fascist Tony White went into the offices of the Northern Star and took their telephone contacts book listing details of
people the magazine was in touch with nationally and Yorkshire especially. Leeds AFA at the time were crystal-clear, stating
in 1994 that "in Spring last year nazi activist Tony White went into the Northern Star offices and stole the address book belonging
to the editor" [3]. White doesn't deny it, nor does Searchlight. This wasn't an isolated act--over an extended period
the Northern Star was subject to a vicious, incessant and unwarranted campaign by nazis throughout Yorkshire to shut them down--which
eventually succeeded. This campaign included arson attacks, threatening phone-calls, break-ins and assaults, carried out by
fascists.
There are two interesting things about White obtaining the Northern Star address book, making it of national significance. First, how he got hold of it. Second, how it was used. On the first point, sources on both Left and Right agree that all
was not as straightforward as it appeared. As Mike Peters of now-defunct magazine Here & Now said to me in 1994, and repeated
in 1995, he'd heard it was "dodgy", an "inside job". This is a serious allegation: it is one thing to be under constant siege,
but for someone 'inside the walls' to be helping the enemy in this way, if true, would be disgraceful. At my near-lynching in
October 1995, the liberals present seemed to find it utterly unthinkable that anybody would do such a thing. The idea that the
vast majority of those under virtual daily attack would contemplate this sort of action is unthinkable and wrong. But all an
'inside job' needed was one person who knew the layout of the centre and when staffing levels would be low to tell White exactly where
the book was, and he could then do the rest in a trice. That, I suspect, is exactly what happened.
PAGE LAST MODIFIED 25/7/07
WHY THESE EVENTS MATTER
What might have been the possible motive for tipping White off about the address book location, and putting
him up to stealing it? Here, events in Leeds intersect with national developments. In 1993 Combat 18 first broke into
the political scene, courtesy of a World In Action/Searchlight special in April, and were relentlessly hyped thereafter. White
sent the address book to Charlie Sargent, then C18 boss. C18 graduated from producing an irregular photocopied bulletin Redwatch to
a glossy 40 page magazine entitled (with zero originality) Combat 18. In late 1993, as well as lurid attacks on 'race-mixers'
and other perceived 'race traitors' the whole of the first half of the Northern Star address book was printed. All hell then
broke loose on the national political stage. Labour MPs in Yorkshire were so furious their details appeared on this hit-list
they signed an Early Day Motion in the Commons (14/2/94) calling for C18 to be investigated. By May 1994 Max Madden MP was calling
for MI5 to get involved [4]. In December 1994 the second C18 magazine of 88 pages came out misleadingly numbered 3 (rather
than 2) and it contained the rest of the Northern Star address book, thereby piling on the political pressure. The timing of
events in Leeds struck me as suspicious in terms of the national picture; in December 1993 Searchlight editor Gerry Gable appeared
before a House of Commons Select Committee and urged that MI5 be used to 'investigate' Combat 18. Given Gable's proven status
as low-grade MI5 errand-boy/pimp, the Northern Star address book theft was exactly his type of operation.
The motive for
MI5 is straightforward--get someone (White) under your control but plausibly deniable, to steal and send details of Yorkshire Leftists
to C18. They print them, MPs get annoyed, leading to the spectacle whereby Labour MPs, normally critical of MI5 (because of
past efforts to undermine Harold Wilson for example), have a change of heart. Ironically, my attention was first drawn to Leeds
by a Leeds AFA circular in 1993, disseminated throughout Europe, denouncing me among others, by name, for performing no useful service
to the anti-fascist movement etc. Evidently, this circular was written under the instructions of, if not actually by, Gerry
Gable or his local representative Nick Lowles. I have drawn attention before to the track-record of Searchlight in compiling
and circulating hit-lists. Indeed, the circular attacked me for writing 'A Lie Too Far' exposing Searchlight for doing exactly
that. So I was even quicker to get on the case than I might have been otherwise.
WHY YORKSHIRE?
That any one area
rather than another is chosen for a covert operation, as I believe happened in Yorkshire, will hardly be a matter of chance rather
than design. In the political jungle that is the extra- parliamentary milieu, there are a multiplicity of state and para-state
agencies competing for space. MI5 obviously have their own assets separate from any they share with Searchlight, and there is
also Special Branch or even (as persistently alleged locally) Army Intelligence. Yorkshire seems to be a political laboratory,
looked at in much the same way as Northern Ireland, with experimental covert operations using ethnicity rather than religion as an
organising factor. Advantages of using Yorkshire include its social mix and densely populated urban metropolises as well
as a distinctive regional identity, enabling experimental results to be more easily quantified. Then there is the long-standing
propensity for street politics in the area to get nasty of their own accord, particularly (though not exclusively) on the fascist
side.
CONTINUED OVERLEAF