Met Police Agent Provocateurs

[Paul Rigby]

Blimey! I didn't expect this. British undercover police agent provocateurs operating in (non Blighty) overseas sovereign territories.

This is MI6 turf not Plod Plc.

Which doubtless explains why The Grauniad, that dear-old friend of MI6, has pursued the story with such uncharacteristic zeal: turf war.

[David Guyatt]

Could be, because the Grauniad is the only one really chasing this story.

[Paul Rigby]

Could be, because the Grauniad is the only one really chasing this story.

Worth recalling that many of the Greeny groups targeted by the Met's trained legions of crack leg-over agent provocateurs were furnished with seed (er, pardon the pun) money and premises by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a veteran British intelligence front used, for example, to manage and penetrate anti-Apartheid groups (and thus the ANC); and that the connections between The Grauniad and the "philanthropic" empire of JRF run very deep. The CIA famously followed the British intel model rather closely with respect to the utility of Quakers et al.

[Peter Presland]

Could be, because the Grauniad is the only one really chasing this story.

Worth recalling that many of the Greeny groups targeted by the Met's trained legions of crack leg-over agent provocateurs were furnished with seed (er, pardon the pun) money and premises by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a veteran British intelligence front used, for example, to manage and penetrate anti-Apartheid groups (and thus the ANC); and that the connections between The Grauniad and the "philanthropic" empire of JRF run very deep. The CIA famously followed the British intel model rather closely with respect to the utility of Quakers et al.

Exactly so.

The Grauniad can be relied upon to be as unrelenting in their pursuit of police wrongdoing as continued 'Establishment authorisation' allows; but MI6 is quite another matter. The apparent blurring of the historical demarcations between MI5, MI6 and to some extent Special Branch on the one hand and the plethora of regular police 'anti-terrorism' initiatives and off-shoots on the other, must be getting a bit confusing for the paper's apparatchiks

The Cryptome article I posted on the CMS yesterday - and especially Rusbridger's Video contributions - are a vivid illustration of the Grauniad's discomfiture, faced as it is with the dilemas ostensibly posed by Wikileaks -v- their continued establishment approval and authorisation.

[Paul Rigby]

Could be, because the Grauniad is the only one really chasing this story.

Worth recalling that many of the Greeny groups targeted by the Met's trained legions of crack leg-over agent provocateurs were furnished with seed (er, pardon the pun) money and premises by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a veteran British intelligence front used, for example, to manage and penetrate anti-Apartheid groups (and thus the ANC); and that the connections between The Grauniad and the "philanthropic" empire of JRF run very deep. The CIA famously followed the British intel model rather closely with respect to the utility of Quakers et al.

From the preamble to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust website:

We are an independent, progressive organisation committed to funding radical change towards a better world.

The JRCT makes grants to individuals and to projects seeking the creation of a peaceful world, political equality and social justice.

We chiefly support work undertaken in the UK and Ireland. The South Africa programme is now closed to new applications.

http://www.jrct.org.uk/

Goodness, only a hardened cynic could conceivably see some sought of overlap between areas of Met undercover activity exposed and (some of) MI6's traditional playgrounds.

[Jan Klimkowski]

There may be something in this - but I doubt that a German anti-fascist group is sponsored "by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation".

Meanwhile, ACPO plc's professional "infiltrators" (undercover assets) are being transferred to line management by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. No meaningful change there then.

Also, there has been a fair amount of coverage of the story in other British newspapers, eg:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthne...ement.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hom...92787.html

And the Daily Mail printed a sympathetic puff piece cum exclusive interview (for which Kennedy/Stone was allegedly paid a lot of money). It can be seen - deconstructed - earlier in this thead.

It is natural, if arguably naive, that members of protest movements would tell their stories to The Guardian. And as a result, Guardian hacks have the best first hand accounts of Kennedy/Stone and other agents provocateurs. Access to first hand testimony enables a newspaper to lead coverage of a story.

This is how newspapers and MSM work. No conspiracy there.

My judgement remains that this is a very embarrassing story for the British deep state because it establishes, unequivocally, for the public domain record, that dozens of undercover assets have been "infiltrated" into protest groups during the past decade, and that these undercover assets have both incited, and provided material support, to criminal actions.

The basic cost to the taxpayer is £250k pa per undercover asset, plus the cost of buying materiel for protest actions, as Mark "Flash" Stone is alleged to have done.

The notion that the deep state is engaged in false flag activity in the C21st, and that such behaviour is not confined to history, is established.

The next time a spooky correspondent turns up on the BBC or Sky, and claims "this not the kind of thing our chaps would get up to nowadays", their utterances will be demonstrably false.

[David Guyatt]

From the preamble to the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust website:

The JRCT makes grants to individuals and to projects seeking the creation of a peaceful world, political equality and social justice.

I noticed a few typos in the foregoing and have amended them as follows:

The JRCT makes grants to individuals and to projects seeking the creation of a free and democratic society for the international community

Ah, that's better.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Article from the 2009 G20 protests in London:

G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds'

MP demands inquiry into Met tactics at demo

Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend The Observer, Sunday 10 May 2009

An MP who was involved in last month's G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.

"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, 'There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'" Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. "He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable," Amos said. "Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He *legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked."

Amos added: "He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/...ovacateurs

Nothing seems to have come of the MP's complaints.

However, Stone/Kennedy was involved as an infiltrator in protests at the EU Summit in Dublin, as follows:

An undercover British agent encouraged protesters to attack Irish police officers at an EU summit in Dublin, the Guardian newspaper has reported.

The undercover policeman Mark Kennedy did more than just observe and was an active participant in the proceedings, according to the newspaper.

The militant anti-capitalist protestors that were at the summit, which marked the accession of eastern European states to the union, are saying that Kennedy made visits to Dublin to help train protesters and encouraged other activists to attackthe police, raising further questions about his role as an undercover officer and supports claims he acted as an agent provocateur.

(snip)

Anti-capitalist activists believed Kennedy to be a fellow protester named Mark Stone during the violent clash between demonstrators and the Irish police riot squad in Dublin's Phoenix Park on May Day 2004. The area around the park was sealed off by a large security cordon as police sought to protect the EU heads of states in Dublin for the ceremony at the Irish president's residence. While most of the demonstrators were peaceful, about 500 attacked the gardaí.

Said one of the protesters on Kennedy's actions on the day: "I saw him taking off his balaclava as he was coming out of the crowd. I was amazed that someone would stand close to police lines and take his mask off."

It was evident before the protest that police had intelligence on the activities of the activists who had travelled across the Irish Sea from Britain, suggesting that they had an informant in the protest movement. A police unit from the Pearse Street station arrested several people after smashing its way into a flat on Leeson Street in Dublin occupied by English anarchists.

"Some people arrested from the UK were kept here for two months but he did not get nicked for that. He was one of the people who were encouraging a confrontation with the garda up at the Parkgate," said an activist who played host to Kennedy.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/British...40214.html

Tom Brake MP should now be asking the Met to identify the police agent provocateurs active at the G20 summit. And Guardian hacks should be using their protest movement sources to idnetify them independently.

I'm not holding my breath....

[Paul Rigby]

There may be something in this - but I doubt that a German anti-fascist group is sponsored "by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation".

It's not much of leap from Rowntree serving as an MI6 money conduit for projects in NI to MI6 funding for groups of interest on mainland Europe:

[/Appendix 4: the Conflict Between MI5 and MI6 in Northern Ireland
[Lobster #11 (Apr 1986)]
... Special Branch officer. A bomb attempt on Enoch Powell MP by the security forces. The Miami Showband killings by Protestants linked to the security forces. The smearing of the Joseph Rowntree Trust which was the conduit for money from MI6 to the political organisations it supported in Northern Ireland. 'The Ulster Citizens' Army'- a 'black' operation ... set up by Wallace and Information Policy. The assassination of Catholics in 1975 by Protestant groups linked to the security forces. The increased killings were designed to break the Provisional IRA truce arranged with the help of MI6. Last| Contents| Next ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 79 - 01 Apr 1986 - URL: http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/online....htmquote]

Meanwhile, ACPO plc's professional "infiltrators" (undercover assets) are being transferred to line management by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. No meaningful change there then.

So far. But this story hasn't yet run its course.

Also, there has been a fair amount of coverage of the story in other British newspapers, eg:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthne...ement.html

The overt house-organ of MI6. The one below is now run, nominally at least, by a Russian with holdings back home - of extreme interest to MI6:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/hom...92787.html

And the Daily Mail printed a sympathetic puff piece cum exclusive interview (for which Kennedy/Stone was allegedly paid a lot of money). It can be seen - deconstructed - earlier in this thead.

It is natural, if arguably naive, that members of protest movements would tell their stories to The Guardian. And as a result, Guardian hacks have the best first hand accounts of Kennedy/Stone and other agents provocateurs. Access to first hand testimony enables a newspaper to lead coverage of a story.

This is how newspapers and MSM work. No conspiracy there.

Well, it's certainly a useful, if thin, cover, but it hardly detracts from the deep political agenda: MI6 curtails activities of turf rival. Moreover, The Grauniad has such deep ties to MI6 - consider the roles of a number of MI6-Grauniad correspondents during the engineered revolution in Russia in 1917 - it would pretty extraordinary for this affair to be coincidental/spontaneous.

My judgement remains that this is a very embarrassing story for the British deep state because it establishes, unequivocally, for the public domain record, that dozens of undercover assets have been "infiltrated" into protest groups during the past decade, and that these undercover assets have both incited, and provided material support, to criminal actions.

But we've been here many times before: Police infiltration of, for instance, anti-Vietnam war movements was notorious, and available to any media org that wanted to explore the story. There is also the small matter of who, within the higher media, is going to raise the point - Frank "Spooky" Gardner? Gordon Careerist?

The next time a spooky correspondent turns up on the BBC or Sky, and claims "this not the kind of thing our chaps would get up to nowadays", their utterances will be demonstrably false.

I wish your point were true: History suggests nothing of the sort will happen.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Paul - is it your judgement that anything published by The Guardian on police or intelligence undercover assets must have come directly, or indirectly, from MI6?

There may be something in this - but I doubt that a German anti-fascist group is sponsored "by offshoots of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation".

It's not much of leap from Rowntree serving as an MI6 money conduit for projects in NI to MI6 funding for groups of interest on mainland Europe:

[/Appendix 4: the Conflict Between MI5 and MI6 in Northern Ireland
[Lobster #11 (Apr 1986)]
... Special Branch officer. A bomb attempt on Enoch Powell MP by the security forces. The Miami Showband killings by Protestants linked to the security forces. The smearing of the Joseph Rowntree Trust which was the conduit for money from MI6 to the political organisations it supported in Northern Ireland. 'The Ulster Citizens' Army'- a 'black' operation ... set up by Wallace and Information Policy. The assassination of Catholics in 1975 by Protestant groups linked to the security forces. The increased killings were designed to break the Provisional IRA truce arranged with the help of MI6. Last| Contents| Next ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 79 - 01 Apr 1986 - URL: http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/online....htmquote]

Except that the deep British state considered Northern Ireland as part of Britain which is why both MI5 and MI6 stirred the pot relentlessly (as well as Military Intelligence, Special Branch and myriad others).

Meanwhile, ACPO plc's professional "infiltrators" (undercover assets) are being transferred to line management by the Metropolitan Police Special Branch. No meaningful change there then.

So far. But this story hasn't yet run its course.

Sure - you can always plead for more time, and the undercover cops may end up reporting elsewhere in time.

However, the simple point is that ACPO plc's undercover cops are now Met Special Branch's undercover cops. These assets, and their territory, has not been surrendered back to MI6.

And the Daily Mail printed a sympathetic puff piece cum exclusive interview (for which Kennedy/Stone was allegedly paid a lot of money). It can be seen - deconstructed - earlier in this thead.

It is natural, if arguably naive, that members of protest movements would tell their stories to The Guardian. And as a result, Guardian hacks have the best first hand accounts of Kennedy/Stone and other agents provocateurs. Access to first hand testimony enables a newspaper to lead coverage of a story.

This is how newspapers and MSM work. No conspiracy there.

Well, it's certainly a useful, if thin, cover, but it hardly detracts from the deep political agenda: MI6 curtails activities of turf rival. Moreover, The Grauniad has such deep ties to MI6 - consider the roles of a number of MI6-Grauniad correspondents during the engineered revolution in Russia in 1917 - it would pretty extraordinary for this affair to be coincidental/spontaneous.

See above. The undercover assets are still Police assets, not MI6 assets.

I also don't see anything particularly extraordinary about lawyers and defendants in a criminal case against environmental protestors choosing to spill the beans to The Guardian when the criminal charges were dropped because the CPS star witness was revealed as a police agent provocateur.

Other members of protest movements - from Ireland to Iceland to Greece - then also recognized Stone/Kennedy, for his incitement and alleged provision of material support (courtesy of the UK taxpayer) to anti-fascists, anarchists and environmentalists across Europe.

Similarly, other protestors identified and exposed around a dozen other police undercover assets active during the past decade.

The Guardian had the access. The Guardian ran the story.

Prima facie this is all very damaging to the official narrative of brave undercover assets risking ther lives to penetrate terrorist cells who threaten British national security.

Now, there may have been attempts by the British deep state to limit the fallout. I would place the Daily Mail piece in this category: Stone/Kennedy was paid an alleged six figure sum to disappear, and a sympathetic to the state slant was put on his deeds.

Rather than obsessing about why MI6 is running this story through The Guardian, I'm more exercised by the fact that other broadsheet newspapers haven't been challenging the police and the government, and asking why undercover assets are acting as agent provocateurs attempting to discredit legitimate protests across Britian and Europe.

My judgement remains that this is a very embarrassing story for the British deep state because it establishes, unequivocally, for the public domain record, that dozens of undercover assets have been "infiltrated" into protest groups during the past decade, and that these undercover assets have both incited, and provided material support, to criminal actions.

But we've been here many times before: Police infiltration of, for instance, anti-Vietnam war movements was notorious, and available to any media org that wanted to explore the story. There is also the small matter of who, within the higher media, is going to raise the point - Frank "Spooky" Gardner? Gordon Careerist?

Yes, we have been here before.

Yes, MSM Security Correspondent is a synonym for Spook.

However, most incidents of agent provocateur or false flag activity by British, American or European nation states are dismissed by governments and MSM as "historical anachronisms", and not the type of activity which would be undertaken now.

That is the official version. That official version is now blown apart by the facts of Stone/Kennedy and the other police undercover assets during the past decade.

The next time a spooky correspondent turns up on the BBC or Sky, and claims "this not the kind of thing our chaps would get up to nowadays", their utterances will be demonstrably false.

I wish your point were true: History suggests nothing of the sort will happen.

I fear these police agent provocateur actions will be quickly forgotten, or swept under the carpet by MSM. But my point still stands.