Inquiry to examine police ‘spying’ on Labour MPs
British authorities are mulling a thorough investigation into the allegations that police spied on Labour lawmakers including Jeremy Corbyn back in the 1990s.
Lord Justice Pitchford, the senior judge leading the public inquiry into undercover policing has already ruled that the probe should be focused on the allegations that police collected information about the political activities of the politicians.
“Matters of importance to the inquiry are whether undercover police operations were directed at politicians, and if so, for what purpose,” he said in a ruling earlier this week.
Police whistleblower
Earlier in March, a former undercover officer revealed that police kept secret files on Labour politicians including Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone following the parliamentary elections.
According to the whistleblower, a special branch of the Metropolitan police conducted spying operations on 10 Labour politicians, covertly monitoring them even after they had been elected to the House of Commons.
The inquiry is also expected to find out how the undercover police spied on protesters and deceived women into forming long-term relationships with them.
Analysts and campaigners say the inquiry must prove full disclosure of decades of work to infiltrate protest groups, including the identities of officers suspected of wrongdoing.
‘No Surprise’
A London-based political commentator says it’s no surprise that the British intelligence services may have spied on lawmakers as they have already broken the surveillance laws.
“The GCHQ and MI5 and MI6 have broken the laws in numerous occasions. It is not surprising in the 1990s when the security services were very interested in both Jeremy Corbyn and Ken Livingstone because both were pushing for a dialog with Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland in order to start the process to get a negotiated settlement,” Chris Bambery told Press TV’s UK Desk on Saturday.
Spying powers
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that MI5 has covertly been gathering huge amounts of information about UK phone calls for more than a decade.
The program has been underway under a law dubbed "vague" and has been aimed at hunting alleged terrorists.
At the same time, the Tory government has been seeking to expand the spying powers of police and intelligence officers.
Home Secretary Theresa May has unveiled a draft bill which allows police and intelligence officers to see the names of sites suspected criminals have visited, without a warrant.
Under the proposed bill, the internet activity of every user in the UK should be held for a year by service providers.
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