MI5 and the threat from the left in the 1970s In ‘MI5 feared militant left could destabilise Britain’ Jimmy Burns reported in The Financial Times 29 December 2006 on a contingency paper by MI5, presented to the Joint Intelligence Committee on April 9 1976. That paper included this:
`Throughout the seventies there has been a growth in the general public uneasiness about the current aims of government due primarily to the harm done to the moral standing of the western democracies by Watergate and CIA activity the ultra-left (sic) have been quick to capitalise on the discontent and sensationalised reports against the security establishment and in particular the police, the intelligence services, and the armed forces.’
Burns adds:
`Together with a corresponding increase in the popularity of British fascists and quasi-fascist organisations, the paper predicts an increase of “enemy propaganda” by the “subversive” left targeting universities, the civil service, and the armed forces. This would be followed by incidents of sabotage “complicated by a revival of the IRA.” ‘ According to Burns, the paper presented a scenario ‘in which a Labour government, acceding to trade union and other militant demands, radicalised its policies against the private sector and the UK’s NATO commitments.’
Burns commented that, The paper] appears to give some credibility to claims made by Mr Wilson, following his resignation, that MI5 contained a group of right-wing officers who were incapable of distinguishing between socialism and communism, and were plotting against the government.’
And how bizarre is MI5’s view that the root cause of all the trouble in the UK was Watergate, the CIA and a few spook-spotters and critics of the police in London. Never mind the British labour movement, the Heath government’s attack on the independence of trade unions and the roaring inflation caused by Heath’s ‘dash for growth’, it was the likes of Tony Bunyan and Phil Kelly!
This MI5 briefing, presumably, is the background to the notorious ‘Gable memorandum’, the account and endorsement of MI5’s delusory briefing on Phil KellyasKGB written by Searchlight’s Gerry Gable. (The Gable memorandum was published in Lobster 24)
Last I heard of him, Phil Kelly was a Liberal-Democrat councillor in London.