Benn Points Out State Snooping

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Tony Benn has lifted another tantalising edge of the veil that shrouds the relationship between the state and the labour movement.

His revelations at the Labour Party conference of Callaghan's vetoes on election manifesto policies stirred up a furious reaction from the . Labour Now comes an introduction to the Review of Security and the State 1980-compiled by State Research, in which Benn details some of the ways in which up-and-coming Labour politicians are drawn into state surveillance.

Playing on the national interests' and the opportunist Labourites' desire to disassociate themselves from 'undemocratic' forces, the state agents turn future leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions into police spies.

The introduction is double edged, pointing the finger as much at Benn as it does at the state.

Benn was first approached by an army colonel through his former headmaster after leaving the navy. He was offered a salary of £1,000 a year-at that time double the pay of the BBC producer's job which he was about to start.

Amazed

Benn says he "thought for a moment"' (what about!) and then said that as he was on the list of would-be Labour candidates he could not undertake such a job.

(Benn's account casts himself in the role of a starry-eyed naive candidate constantly amazed at the deviousness of the democratic state).

"Expecting that this reply would end the interview, I was very surprised to hear him say: 'Oh that is no problem. could do both jobs.' "

Later, after becoming an MP, Benn was approached again the same colonel, who offered work for the Foreign Office' and named "a certain Labour MP who had served as a Minister in the 1945-51 Labour Benn says thanked him courteously and declined again."

When Benn was invited to address what he calls "The Socialist International" (the 2nd International which helped send the male youth of Europe to their mass graves in 1914) his Civil Service private secretary expressed shock and horror, apparently under the impression that this was the same as the forerunners of the SWPthe International Socialists.

Benn appears to attack the state's role on Northern Ireland; but in fact a closer reading shows he does no such thing.

He describes the build-up security measures as: • "an apparatus that, improperly used, would resemble that of a police state and could stretch back into intelligence work in Britain."

(our emphasis)

Benn is not one to use words carelessly. He clearly is not prepared to say that the apparatus is a police state in Northern Ireland.

Own role

Benn also skates over his own role in the use of the army, in industrial disputes-mentionobscurely plans to use troops to break the tanker drivers' strike in 78-79 when he was Energy Secretary-but remaining silent on his own role.

He expresses amazement that the security services did not move against currency speculators in 1976 and upholds the right of senior civil servants to höld their 'private' political beliefs so long as they don't ''incorporate their own political attitudes into the work they do as military or civil servants".

Benn's article most glaringly fails to expose those in the labour movement who Benn, on his own admission, knows to be spies.

He alludes to a 'social occasion' when a former Labour Prime Minister admitted spying on a strike HQ. What Prime Minister? Which strike?

The introduction shows the crying need for a workers' inquiry to weed out the state spies in the labour movement. First to the witness box could be Tony Benn-with a list of names and dates.

*The Review of Security and the State 1980 by State Research is published by Julian Friedman Books Ltd at £10.

GANG A court case is taking place in London in the High Court which has no heroes, only villains. Nevertheless it is running true to form as a whitewash job on the press.

The Moonies-Unification Church-are suing the Daily Mail for libel for an article in 1978 which described them as a "sinister' church which 'breaks up families.

This description may not seem a cause for offence to Socialist Press readers who will have no love for the big business machines of 'alternative churches' 13m dollars Such churches seem to view poverty as essential for their rank and file and something to be avoided at all costs by their Already the court has been told that the Rev. Sun Yan Moon is worth 13 million US dollars.

But the charges which are regularly levelled at the Moonies in the press (the Daily Mail has been chosen as a test case)

would at first sight seem to be better aimed elsewhere.

How about Church seized my daughter' sobs father-over a story which could read:

"Heart broken parents last night accused a mystical group of brainwashing and abducting their daughter.

The 18-yeard old girl has left home and is living under a vow of silence' in a prison like building called a convent.

Her head has been shaved rod h sacklike object. She told her parents-before disappearing -that she was going to be a "bride of Christ"

"The religious sect observe strict discipline and worship a man executed for treason nearly 2000 years ago.

The group is well known as a breaker up of families. It insists that children of members must be members.

But it is controlled by a group of wealthy elderly drones in Rome who own vast areas oi land throughout the world and who live in unimaginable luxury -At their head is a shadowy Mafia Godfather known as the Pope. He claims to be the earthly representative of a deity who made everything-and Benn therefore infallible.

Last night the stricken mother said: «We tried to MOle reason with her but she just stared at us with eyes that seemed drugged and said she had seen the truth revealed in a dream"

Such a story has yet to be written about the Roman Catholic Church but is common currency over the Moonies.

Yet the Daily Mail certainly has the judge-if not the juryon its side.

So far the Moonies, even to continue their case, must pay into court by the new year a total of £175,000. This is the "¡justice" for which British courts are famed.

In fact the case is quite likely to be struck out if the Moonie leadership is unwilling to cough up.

If such things were written about Pope or Archbishop the court would probably be a criminal one and the sentence measured in decades.

So long as the Moonies (who are considered to "discredit' religion and challenge parental authority) are the target, then the Daily Mail is regarded by the courts as being on the side of the angels.