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By Jason Michael
It would be silly to think that Scotland has escaped the creepy watchful eyes of Britain’s dirty-tricksters in the secret service. We know what they are capable of and what they have done in the past. We have to keep our eyes and ears open.
As the prospect of Scottish independence poses a real threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom as a state entity, it stands to reason that the security apparatus of the British state is taking an active interest in our independence movement. Regardless of the rhetoric concerning its value and reliability, Scotland’s North Sea oil continues to be Britain’s most important strategic resource – and maintaining control over this cannot be anything but at the top of the Westminster government’s priorities. It was the wealth generated from Scotland’s oil that transformed the City of London into a global financial centre, and, with the British economy now on the Brexit chopping block, oil has to be considered one of the UK’s last reliable securities.
Scotland’s North Sea oil and London’s control over it is nothing short of a matter of national security, and it is this fact that explicates the need of the British state to deploy its secret state security machinery against the Scottish National Party and the wider independence movement in this country. Without succumbing to paranoia – which is of course a desirable by-product as far as the British administration is concerned – we must familiarise ourselves with the UK security services, its known tactics and prior operations in similar contexts.
Not to be too alarmist, it must be borne in mind that when it comes to the murder of its own citizens and agents these organisations have form. In Scotland there is enough evidence to implicate MI5 and others in the 1985 death – in suspicious circumstances – of the Scottish nationalist and anti-nuclear activist Willie MacRae; enough at least to warrant a full inquiry. Much the same can be said for the 1984 death of Hilda Murrell, that of Dr David Kelly – the “sexed up dossier” whistle-blower – in 2003, and the murder of known MI6 operative Gareth Williams in 2010.
Thanks to the former MI5 Intelligence Officer and whistle-blower Annie Machon we know the British secret service funded al-Qaeda in Libya, aided in the false conviction of Palestinian Solidarity activists in London, and deliberately ignored coded messages from the Provisional IRA – effectively creating false-flag attacks and letting British citizens die. We are not talking about people with the best moral and ethical standards, and it is unimaginable that they are not operating in Scotland.
Officially, MI5 and GCHQ – the domestic intelligence agencies – rescinded their political brief at the end of the Cold War; giving the secret police – or “special branch” – the task of deep intelligence gathering and the infiltration of “political subversives” – small left-wing and Trotskyist groups, the Militant Tendency, the Socialist Workers Party, and such like. From her experience within MI5 in the mid-1990s Machon is able to confirm that these operations continued unofficially, with the surveillance and wire-tapping of Labour government ministers.
If it true that members of the British government and small, fringe political groups were deemed enough of a security concern to merit the attention of the secret services, then it can be safely assumed Scotland’s political subversives are under active clandestine investigation. Those of us involved in pro-independence politics and activism in Scotland have to be aware that the reach of this unofficial and secretive scrutiny is full-spectrum – reaching from the highest offices of the SNP, Green Party, and Scottish Socialist Party to small local, pro-independence groups. Paranoia will not serve us well, but there are Reds under our beds.
Inside MI5 – The Real Spooks (State Propaganda Video)
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